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David Swanson is the author of "When the World Outlawed War," "War Is A Lie" and "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 26, 2009 Obama's Open Forum Opens Possibilities
Now President Obama is asking for our opinions on a website. This is a good thing but should be gone into with some caveats.
(100 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 4, 2009 Feith Dares Obama to Enforce the Law
Doug Feith is bluffing big time, and he's lifted Dick Cheney and George Bush onto the table as his bet. Now if only he could stop visibly sweating.
(31 comments) SHARE Friday, December 26, 2008 Did Bush Sr. Kill Kennedy and Frame Nixon?
Russ Baker's new book presents an account of the U.S. government that is both remarkably new and extensively documented.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 3, 2006 Eleven Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military
But even such a person, facing a highly unpleasant and unrewarding work life, and facing a taxpayer-funded multibillion-dollar advertising campaign for military recruitment, would not for an instant consider joining the military if they had read "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military."
SHARE Saturday, March 25, 2023 The Question of a Ukraine Agreement Is Not a Question
The question of a Ukraine agreement is not a question, for two reasons. One, the warmaking parties want the war to continue. Two, if they were willing to make an agreement, everybody on all sides knows exactly (or darn near exactly) what it would have to be, and always has.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Japanese Delegation Wants the U.S. Out of Okinawa
A 24-member delegation from Japan is in Washington, D.C., this week opposing the presence and new construction of U.S. military bases in Okinawa.
(81 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 12, 2016 Abandon all hope for the Democratic Party
For decades, people have tried to fix the Democratic Party. They've imagined that their failings in this regard could be overcome by a greater effort. But it is hard to imagine anyone in the future mounting as significant an effort as did Bernie Sanders and his supporters.
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 2, 2012 27 of 35 Bush Articles of Impeachment Apply to Obama
When Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush on June 9, 2008, the 35 had been selected from drafts of nearly twice that many articles.
(13 comments) SHARE Friday, January 6, 2012 Why Not Attack Iran?
The push to attack Iran has been on for so long that entire categories of arguments for it (such as that the Iranians are fueling the Iraqi resistance) have come and gone.
SHARE Monday, May 15, 2006 Iraq War Images Uncensored
This collection of photos is the most complete we are aware of. Many of them are being made public here for the first time. Many of them are extremely gruesome.
(9 comments) SHARE Monday, March 25, 2013 Bradley Manning's Nobel Peace Prize
Whistleblower Bradley Manning has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and he should receive it.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 12, 2011 Lies About the U.S. Civil War 150 Years Later
Tuesday marks 150 years since the start of the U.S. Civil War. Newspapers everywhere are proclaiming it the deadliest war in U.S. history, the costliest U.S. war in terms of the loss of human life. That claim, like most things we say about the Civil War, is false.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 11, 2013 Monsanto Has Taken Over The USDA
While Hungary has just destroyed all Monsanto genetically engineered corn fields, the USDA takes a slightly different approach toward the chemical giant. The USDA has, in fact, never denied a single application from Monsanto for new genetically engineered crops. Not one. Not ever.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 27, 2009 An Avatar Awakening
Let's face it, if James Cameron had made a movie with the Iraqi resistance as the heroes and the U.S. military as the enemies, and had set it in Iraq or anywhere else on planet earth, the packed theaters viewing "Avatar" would have been replaced by a screening in a living room for eight people and a dog.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 24, 2006 California Becomes Second State to Introduce Bush Impeachment
Joining Illinois, California has become the second state in which a proposal to impeach President Bush has been introduced in the state legislature. And this one includes Cheney as well.
(14 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 29, 2009 16 Arrested at Aetna for Demanding Healthcare
Sixteen people were arrested this morning at 99 Park Ave in New York City for entering the lobby of the health insurance company Aetna and demanding that Aetna stop denying healthcare approved by doctors.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 10, 2012 About the Untold History of the United States
Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznik have produced a phenomenally great book of U.S. history, and an accompanying television series premiering on Showtime on Monday.
(10 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 8, 2013 The Missiles That Brought Down TWA Flight 800
If the U.S. public began to raise a fuss about U.S. missile strikes that blow up large numbers of civilians at wedding parties abroad, it's not beyond the realm of the imaginable that the U.S. government would begin blaming the explosions on faulty candles in the wedding cakes. A similarly implausible excuse was used to explain the 1996 explosion of TWA flight 800 off Long Island, New York.
(13 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 20, 2011 Balance the Budget on the Backs of Billionaires
These are the hardcore plutocrats. These are the people who personally take the time to destroy our political system for their own short-term gain -- and that of their families if their aristocracy of wealth is allowed to continue.
(44 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 14, 2009 Conyers Explains Why He Hasn't Impeached
Over the past three years, a great many people have lobbied Conyers to impeach Bush and Cheney. I've worked with him and his staff, been arrested protesting in his office, and everything in between. Conyers includes in his new report a foreword that amounts to a seven-page letter to disappointed impeachment advocates.
(14 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 10, 2009 Obama's Rejection Speech
That was not a peace prize acceptance speech. That was an infomercial for war. President Obama took the peace prize home with him, but left behind in Oslo his praise for war, his claims for war, and his view of an alternative and more peaceful approach to the world consisting of murderous economic sanctions.
(13 comments) SHARE Friday, March 4, 2011 People v. U.S. Govt
Statistically speaking, virtually nobody in the United States of America knows . . .
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 4, 2010 Gooey Black Corporate Greed
Corporate persons aren't like you and I. They have eternal life and legal immunity. No death, no taxes, no joy or pain or moral feeling. No sweat and no tears. When they move their mouths, out come dollars, and we call those dollars speech. But when they stub their toe and bleed, out comes thick black goo in a gusher that could turn the ocean into a dead black pit, and we call that goo petroleum.
(16 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 8, 2017 Allegations Against Russia Less Credible Every Day
The U.S. government has now generated numerous news stories and released multiple "reports" aimed at persuading us that Vladimir Putin is to blame for Donald Trump becoming president. U.S. media has dutifully informed us that the case has been made. What has been made is the case for writing your own news coverage.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 5, 2007 Largest Civil Disobedience Movement in US History Underway
I am of the opinion that there has never been a movement in U.S. history with the number of arrests which have taken place in opposition to the Iraq War.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 22, 2012 Why Even Failed Activism Succeeds
Of course, activism that appears ineffectual at the time can succeed in a great many ways.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 19, 2012 Republicans Boo the Golden Rule
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. An important rule to live by. So is this corollary: Friends don't let friends watch presidential primary debates.
(48 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 5, 2015 U.S. Drops Fleas With Bubonic Plague on North Korea
This happened some 63 years ago, but as the U.S. government has never stopped lying about it, and it's generally known only outside the United States, I'm going to treat it as news.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 21, 2013 TPP: The Terrible Plutocratic Plan
Maybe the first thing I would interrupt a super bowl or a state of the union to tell people about the TPP is that it creates corporate nationhood.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 16, 2011 Did You Just Call Me a Socialist?
On Friday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, congress members spoke in defense of Medicare, Social Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other programs that by almost anyone's definition are socialist, programs that were denounced as socialist by opponents of their passage in decades past, programs that would not have been created without the efforts of socialists and the Socialist Party.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 4, 2011 70 Years of Lying About Pearl Harbor
The legend of Pearl Harbor, re-used on 9-11, is responsible not for the destructive pro-war policies of the 1920s and the 1930s that brought World War II into being, but responsible for the permanent war mentality of the past 70 years, as well as for how World War II was escalated, prolonged, and completed.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 20, 2007 Hillary Clinton Booed Again at Take Back America
Ellen Malcolm introduced Hillary Clinton, talking about health care, and Clinton opened her speech with a promise to lift a ban on stem cell research.
(18 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 13, 2017 Never-Ending War in the Time of Trump and How to Stop It
The Mother of All Lies is this: you can fix things by blowing them up. Alcoholics should not drink, and people who cannot watch TV and distinguish it from reality should not watch TV. Donald Trump watches a lot of TV and may very well believe what it teaches, namely that blowing things up solves problems. He certainly has figured out, as I knew he would, that the way to get love from the U.S. corporate media is: blow stuff up.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, November 13, 2017 U.S. Mass Shooters Are Disproportionately Veterans
Are veterans of the U.S. military disproportionately likely to be mass killers in the United States? Asking such a question is difficult, first because of concerns of profiling, discrimination, etc., and second, because it's hard to answer.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 14, 2019 1968: Lyme Disease Escaped from a Bio-weapons Lab off the Connecticut coast
A new book called Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons by Kris Newby adds significantly to our understanding of Lyme disease, while oddly seeming to avoid mention of what we already knew.
(22 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 15, 2016 What Hillary Clinton Privately Told Goldman Sachs
At first glance, Hillary Clinton's speeches to Goldman Sachs, which she refused to show us but WikiLeaks claims to have now produced the texts of, reveal less blatant hypocrisy or abuse than do the texts of various emails also recently revealed. But take a closer look.
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, July 13, 2009 I've Seen 1,200 Torture Photos
This moment, in which the Attorney General of the United States claims to be considering the possibility of allowing our laws against torture to be enforced seems a good one in which to reveal that I have seen over 1,200 torture photos and a dozen videos that are in the possession of the United States military.
SHARE Tuesday, February 6, 2018 Is Fred Warmbier Grieving or Warmongering?
Fred Warmbier, whose son Otto Warmbier, a student here at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, died shortly after returning from North Korea, is reportedly traveling to the Winter Olympics with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.
(19 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Is Obama Even Worse Than Bush?
When I advocated the impeachment of George W. Bush, I did so despite, not because of, all the animosity it fueled among impeachment supporters.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 20, 2018 Yes, the United States Used Biowarfare on North Korea
It's sort of silly that it matters. The United States bombed North Korea flat with ordinary, non-bioweapons bombs. It ran out of standing structures to bomb. People lived in caves, if they lived. Millions died, most of them from regular old non-scandalous but mass-murderous bombs (including, of course, Napalm which melts people but doesn't give them exotic diseases).
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 1, 2011 Why Wars Really Happen
Many discussions of lies that launch wars quickly come around to the question "Well then why did they want the war?" There is usually more than one single motive involved, but the motives are not terribly hard to find.
(10 comments) SHARE Monday, May 10, 2010 Chris Hedges' Hangup on Religion
Chris Hedges is one of the best, one of the most morally useful, writers we have. He's free of loyalty to political party or dogma. He knows war first hand and describes it without flinching. He's an almost ideal gadfly to our corporatocracy. But he has a hangup on religion that holds him back.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 10, 2018 Enough is Enough. The Time Has Come to BDS the US.
People, organizations, and governments around the world, and people and organizations in the United States, need to stand up at long last and nonviolently resist the lawless behavior of the rogue U.S. government.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 24, 2010 Six Facts No War Supporter Knows
This coming week, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on $33 billion for war. A majority of Americans opposes this, but a sizable minority of Americans supports it. No one who supports it can be aware of any of the following six facts.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 13, 2007 What If the FBI Hired Someone Honest to Look into 9-11?
It did. Her name was Sibel Edmonds. This is her story, as she told it to me. Edmonds discusses what she knows, whom it implicates, and what she's been through and what hope there is in the new Congress to start an investigation.
SHARE Saturday, February 23, 2019 U.S. Sale of War Planes to New Zealand Faces Popular Resistance in U.S. and New Zealand
The U.S. State Department uses public funds and employees to market private products designed for mass killing to foreign governments. Few corporations have benefitted more from this socialism for the oligarchs than Boeing. In a recent example, the U.S. government has persuaded the New Zealand government to buy four "Poseidon" planes from Boeing that are designed for working with submarines, of which New Zealand possesses zero
(17 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 9, 2015 The Video That Could Indict the Pentagon for Murder
As Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting points out, until a video surfaced of South Carolina policeman Michael Slager murdering Walter Scott, the media was reporting a package of lies manufactured by the police: a fight that never occurred, witnesses who didn't exist, the victim taking the policeman's taser, etc. The lies collapsed because the video appeared. I find myself asking why videos of missiles blowing children ...
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 19, 2014 Killed by Congressional Cowardice
One would be hard press to count the number of people who have lost their lives to an excess of cowardice in the halls of the United States Congress. But the number just went up.
(18 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 10, 2017 Impeach Trump for Right Reasons
The Constitution suddenly seems to have bestirred itself and declared itself, through its many Washington spokespeople, to be in crisis.
I'm sorry, interjects the world, but what the hell took you so long?
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 11, 2006 Poll: Bush Lied About Iraq, Has No Right to Attack Iran
A new poll conducted in Pennsylvania by Zogby International and commissioned by OpEdNews.com asked some of the questions the corporate media has failed to ask. The answers are surprising. One revelation is this: the single greatest predictor of an American's political views is whether she or he watches Fox News.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, April 20, 2015 The Decline and Fall of the United States
After a speech I gave this past weekend, a young woman asked me whether a failure by the United States to properly surround and intimidate China might result in instability. I explained why I thought the opposite was true. Imagine if China had military bases along the Canadian and Mexican borders with the United States and ships in Bermuda and the Bahamas, Nova Scotia and Vancouver. Would you feel stabilized?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 7, 2010 FOIA Request Filed for OPR Report on Bush's Lawyers
An organization of attorneys, journalists, and advocates today filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act requesting the long-suppressed report from the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) regarding the conduct of President Bush's top lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel who authored memos purporting to authorize torture and aggressive war.
SHARE Tuesday, November 15, 2011 One Veteran's Rough Path from Killing and Torturing to Peace
Not yet 30, Evan Knappenberger has already lived several lives. His story destroys the U.S. government's case against whistleblower Bradley Manning, exposes the toxic mix of fraud and incompetence that creates U.S. war policies, and highlights the damage so often done to soldiers who come home without visible injuries.
(42 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 20, 2016 World War Two Was Not a Just War
Without rich, well-established myths about World War II, current propaganda about Russia or Syria or Iraq or China would sound as crazy to most people as it sounds to me.
(14 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 12, 2009 You Are Friends With an Atheist
If you live in the United States, you are almost certainly friends with at least one atheist, agnostic, nonbeliever, skeptic, or unaffiliated humanist, whether you know it or not. And your friend almost certainly endures prejudice and unequal treatment, whether you know it or not. And your friend is roughly as decent, good, loyal, honest, courageous, and generous as your other friends, and you know it.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 31, 2011 Obama Crowned Himself on New Year's Eve
President Barack Obama waited until New Year's Eve to take an action that I suspect he wanted his willfully deluded followers to have a good excuse not to notice.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 5, 2015 Why do War Veterans Commit Suicide or Murder?
In two recent articles in the Los Angeles Times and the academic studies that inspired them, the authors investigate the question of which war veterans are most likely to commit suicide or violent crimes. Remarkably, the subject of war, their role in war, their thoughts about the supposed justifications (or lack thereof) of a war, never come up.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 2, 2011 Is That Even Legal?
We could end up with a war illegal under the Constitution, legal and illegal under laws and treaties depending which we choose to consult, and illegal or legal under a signing statement depending how we try to make sense of it, but legal under the Justice Department's memos. What's legal?
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, November 1, 2013 Eisenhower's Drones
President Eisenhower had his own cheap and easy tool for better warfare. It was called the Delightfully Deluded Dulles Brothers, and -- in terms of how much thought this pair of brothers gave to the possible outcomes of their reckless assault on the world -- it's fair to call them a couple of drones in a literal as well as an analogous sense.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 27, 2011 24 Items Not to Hoard
Toilet Paper. Instead of hoarding toilet paper for the coming disaster and anarchy that should never be out of your mind if you want to remain easily manipulable by cynical demagogues, invest in providing clean and accessible bathrooms for the homeless.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, January 30, 2017 Open Letter to Donald Trump: End U.S. War in Afghanistan
The U.S. war in Afghanistan is well into its 16th year. In 2014 President Obama declared it over, but it will remain a political, financial, security, legal, and moral problem unless you actually end it.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, November 3, 2017 David Swanson TED Talk TEDx Charlottesville on Why End War
After winning an open mic with a 4-minute talk, they had to let me in but only gave me 5 minutes. While a disturbing number of the other speakers did work for the military or CIA, the audience seemed fairly receptive to this mini-talk.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, April 23, 2012 What Bradley Manning Means to Us
Chase Madar's new book, The Passion of Bradley Manning, pulls together the essential facts that we should try to somehow deliver to television viewers and victims of our education system. The subtitle is "The Story of the Suspect Behind the Largest Security Breach in U.S. History."
(36 comments) SHARE Friday, October 19, 2012 The Case for Irrational Voting
Some smart friends of mine argue for a particular type of quasi-rational voting.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, April 6, 2018 Why the Google Protest of War Work Is Wonderful
The fact that 3,100 Google employees signed a letter opposing Google doing work for the U.S. military is wonderful for what it reveals.
(14 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 3, 2009 Baucus Tells Single-Payer Advocates No
Senator Max Baucus met Wednesday with advocates for single-payer healthcare, including Senator Bernie Sanders, and told them that he might drop criminal charges against 13 people arrested for speaking up in his hearings, but that he would not include any supporters of single-payer health coverage in any future hearings.
(27 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 17, 2009 Army Experience Center's Bad Experience: Turns out Training Kids to Kill Not Popular with Public
The military says they're not going to clone the Army Experience Center because recruiting is up due to the economy. You wouldn't expect them to admit that protesters opposing the experiment in military war 'porn' as they described it, actually played a significant role in shutting it down with protests that led to arrests, including the arrest of OEN managing editor Cheryl Biren, who was not protesting, merely taking photos
(13 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 10, 2014 Warning to War Supporters
I know you mean well. I know you think you've found a bargain that nobody else noticed hidden in a back corner of the used car lot. Let me warn you: it's a clunker. Here, I'll list the defects. You can have your own mechanic check them out:
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, December 16, 2011 Set Your Doomsday Clock to 11:51
The National Defense Authorization Act is not a leap from democracy to tyranny, but it is another major step on a steady and accelerating decade-long march toward a police state. The doomsday clock of our republic just got noticeably closer to midnight, and the fact that almost nobody knows it, simply moves that fatal minute-hand a bit further still.
(18 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 16, 2015 NBC Dares Mention Climate in Spread of Lyme Disease, But Not Who Created Lyme Disease
Climate change is apparently encouraging the spread of Lyme disease, and a report by NBC News dares to say so. This may seem like a fresh breath of honest sanity in a media context in which even the weather reports usually avoid the topic of human global destruction.
However, another topic is clearly still off limits: the topic of who created Lyme disease.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, September 18, 2017 The Best Speech Yet From Any U.S. President
In planning an upcoming conference aimed at challenging the institution of war, to be held at American University September 22-24, I can't help but be drawn to the speech a U.S. president gave at American University a little more than 50 years ago. Whether or not you agree with me that this is the best speech ever given by a U.S. president, there should be little dispute that it is the speech most out of step with what anyone
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, April 29, 2013 The Revolution That's Not Being Televised
On July 28, 2012, Michael R. Walli (63), Megan Rice (82), and Greg Boertje-Obed (57) entered the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge undetected.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 29, 2018 If the Second Amendment Was Meant for Genocide, Is It Sacred?
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's new book, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, could be criticized for how little it seems to focus on the Second Amendment, and how much on topics familiar from the author's past writing. But the topics are radically unfamiliar to most U.S. Americans and extremely relevant to understanding what the Second Amendment was and is.
(14 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 19, 2017 Oh For Godsake, Leave Jill Stein Alone
Why is the U.S. Congress going after Jill Stein? Because no law-enforcement agency could do so, since no probable cause exists to believe she has committed any crime. Neither is there probable cause to believe she engaged in the non-criminal action of shaping her policy platform based on anything she learned from anyone Russian.
(19 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 12, 2015 Why Allen Dulles Killed the Kennedys
By now there's not nearly as much disagreement regarding what happened to John and Robert Kennedy as major communications corporations would have you believe. While every researcher and author highlights different details, there isn't any serious disagreement among, say, Jim Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable, Howard Hunt's deathbed confession, and David Talbot's new The Devil's Chessboard.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 26, 2011 How Americans Can Get Up and Stand Up
In December 2009, psychologist Bruce Levine published an article at Alternet called "Are Americans a Broken People?" His timing couldn't have been better.
(22 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 7, 2010 Pearl Harbor: A Successful War Lie
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's fervent hope for years was that Japan would attack the United States.
(15 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 20, 2015 When $8.5 Trillion is Chump Change
Three cheers for Reuters pointing out that the Pentagon can't explain what it did with $8.5 trillion that taxpayers gave it between 1996 and 2013.
(15 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 27, 2013 Got His Gun -- Lost His Legs, Arms, and Penis
The U.S. military assigns specialists in "Mortuary Affairs" to dispose of the dead. They dispose of their own sanity in the process. And first they dispose of their appetite.
(18 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 31, 2009 Myths of the Robber Class?
"Myth America: 10 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution."
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 24, 2006 RNC Line on Impeachment: Verily, This Is That
Black is white. War is peace. Impeachment is good for Republicans. Haven't you heard? The Republicans say so. The Democrats say so. It just must BE so.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 23, 2011 Humanitarian War vs. Humanity
The idea that wars are waged out of humanitarian concern may not at first appear even worthy of response. Wars kill humans. What can be humanitarian about that? But look at the sort of rhetoric that successfully sells new wars:
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 20, 2011 The 99% Deficit Proposal Published
With this report Occupy Washington, DC shows that Congress is out of touch with evidence-based solutions, supported by the majority of Americans that can revive the economy, reduce the deficit and wealth divide while create millions of jobs.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 12, 2014 A Paradigm for Peace
Raise your hand if you weren't surprised when fancy films of beheadings resulted in bombings?
Keep your hand up if you weren't shocked when bombings resulted in more brutality and beheadings?
Is it possible we need a radically different way of thinking about how to solve violence?
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 18, 2012 Bring on the Beautiful Trouble
Beautiful Trouble is a terrific addition to Gene Sharp's catalog of nonviolent tactics, less comprehensive, more up-to-date, more U.S.-centric, and focused on the artistic and the entertaining.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 27, 2011 Obama Denies Vermont Healthcare
There's a problem, of course. And the problem is not purely that Republicans are evil. The problem is also that the President of the United States already cut off this escape route.
(12 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 17, 2016 Chomsky Wants You to Wake Up from the American Dream
If you've just seen Michael Moore's movie and are wondering how in the world the United States got diverted into the slow lane to hell, go watch Noam Chomsky's movie. If you've just seen Noam Chomsky's movie and are wondering whether the human species is really worth saving, go see Michael Moore's movie.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 11, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Cynthia McKinney's Real State of the Union
Cynthia McKinney has served in the Georgia State Legislature and the United States Congress where she voted against NAFTA, opposed the war on Iraq, and introduced the first resolution for the impeachment of George W. Bush.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 18, 2012 Veterans For Peace Illegally Spied on By Boston Police Fusion Center
Veterans For Peace in Boston, the late VFP member Howard Zinn, and several other peace organizations in Boston have been routinely spied on for years, and records kept on their peaceful and lawful activities.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, June 27, 2008 Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream
(Originally published in July 2007, and to be published every summer until the right to do so is gone.)
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, April 13, 2009 Bag the Tea Bagging
Sadly, those involved in these events across the nation support tax policies more in line with King George than with most colonists.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, April 7, 2006 Hawaii Legislature Takes Steps to End War
The Hawaii State Senate has passed a resolution "CALLING UPON THE GOVERNOR OF HAWAII TO TAKE STEPS TO WITHDRAW THE HAWAII ARMY AND AIR NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS FROM IRAQ."
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 26, 2010 An Ocean Full of Oil
Earlier this year, we put millions of barrels of oil, billions of cubic feet of gas, and 1.5 million gallons of chemical dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico.
(11 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 25, 2009 Dangerous Executive Orders
The Center for Constitutional Rights has expressed concern that President Obama's executive order banning torture may contain a loophole. But no president has any right to declare torture legal or illegal, with or without loopholes. And if we accept that presidents have such powers, even if our new president does good with them, then loopholes will be the least of our worries.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 2, 2014 Finally, Fake News Done Right
John Oliver is what I always wished Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert would be. In fact, he's what I always wished Ted Koppel or Jim Lehrer would be.
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 28, 2011 Our New Iraq-Afghanistan War National Holiday
Memorial Day is nice, I suppose. Veterans Day is all right. Patriots Day can be fun. Yellow Ribbon Day's not bad. But you will be pleased to hear that on Thursday the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously voted, in pure bipartisan harmony, to add the following gem to the big war-funding, war-expanding, bill that now goes to the Senate:
(21 comments) SHARE Monday, October 20, 2008 A McCain "Win" Will Be Theft, Resistance Is Planned
If your television declares John McCain the president elect on the evening of November 4th, your television will be lying. You should immediately pick up your pre-packed bags and head straight to the White House in Washington, D.C., which we will surround and shut down until this attempt at a third illegitimate presidency is reversed.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 23, 2012 Veterans For Peace Among 33 Arrested Outside Drone Base in New York State
Three members of Veterans For Peace -- Russell Brown, John Amidon, and Elliott Adams -- were among 33 peaceful protesters arrested on Sunday outside Hancock Air Field in New York State. Almost all of the 33 were arrested preemptively, as they walked single-file and silently along a road, prior to reaching the military base, at which they intended to approach the gate and deliver a written statement.
(16 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 21, 2018 But What Do We Impeach Him For?
Thanksgiving conversation material.
In his conduct while President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution "to take care . . .
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 28, 2015 Stop Smoking the Democrack
The U.S. government is toying with a war with nuclear Russia while already waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, having done severe damage to Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Military spending is climbing ever higher. Presidential war powers are ever more extreme. The proliferation of nuclear technology is combining with the ease and secrecy of drone wars to raise the risk of a Dr. Strangelove finish to the human species.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, January 30, 2015 CIA Tried to Give Iraq Nuclear Plans, Just Like Iran
If you've followed the trials of James Risen and Jeffrey Sterling, or read Risen's book State of War, you are aware that the CIA gave Iran blueprints and a diagram and a parts list for the key component of a nuclear bomb.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, May 14, 2012 Hopelessly Devoted
You'd never know it from watching television, but there are many thousands of people in the United States who take peace, justice, environmental protection, and government of the people so seriously that they don't censor themselves whenever the president is a Democrat.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 2, 2010 Shooting Handcuffed Children
The occupied government of Afghanistan and the United Nations have both concluded that U.S.-led troops recently dragged eight sleeping children out of their beds, handcuffed some of them, and shot them all dead.
(39 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 27, 2009 States Permitted to Worsen But Not Improve Healthcare?
The absence of a civilized healthcare system in the United States, almost alone among wealthy nations, results in tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths every year. But if something is to be done soon to save lives it is not going to be done in Washington, D.C. It is going to be done in Sacramento, Harrisburg, Columbus, Springfield, Augusta, Denver.
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, October 5, 2009 We Were Arrested for Speaking
U.S. Park Policeman (USPP) who shall remain nameless on Monday, October 5, 2009: Next!
Me: Is that me?
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 26, 2012 Iran, Israel, and Existential Threats
I had dinner with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday night in New York, along with dozens of other peace activists. This is an annual event, and I've taken part in it more than once.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 12, 2015 Cuba Is Our Family
Cuba and the Estados Unidos have been family for so long that relationships have been reversed, forgotten, turned inside out, and repeated.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 19, 2013 Manning Wins Peace Prize
U.S. whistleblower and international hero Bradley Manning has just been awarded the 2013 Sean MacBride Peace Award by the International Peace Bureau, itself a former recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, for which Manning is a nominee this year.
(18 comments) SHARE Friday, January 22, 2016 Bernie v. Media; The Failure of Propaganda
Bernie is something new. The major media has given him ridiculously little coverage, and belittled him in most of that coverage. Yet he has surged in the polls, in volunteers, in small-donor fundraising, and in real world events.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 21, 2011 The Media Is A Curable Disease
Rupert Murdoch, who got his start in business marketing rats and manure, has chosen to deny Italy access to a television network that has presented critical coverage of both Murdoch and of leading Italian media baron and prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The network, Current TV, is the project of a man identified in Italy primarily as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, January 29, 2010 Tony Blair Forced to Testify on War Crimes
Former prime minister Tony Blair's testimony was streamed live at 4:30 a.m. ET at the Iraq Inquiry website and on other sites, such as the UK newspaper the Telegraph which allowed viewers to rank Blair's responses on a "Lie Meter". Telegraph readers' top desired questions pre-hearing were:
SHARE Sunday, June 14, 2020 Bernie, Amendments, and Moving the Money
Senator Bernie Sanders has finally done something that some of us thought would give his presidential campaign a big boost four years ago, and again this past year.
(62 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 7, 2016 The Super Bowl Promotes War
Super Bowl 50 will be the first National Football League championship to happen since it was reported that much of the pro-military hoopla at football games, the honoring of troops and glorifying of wars that most people had assumed was voluntary or part of a marketing scheme for the NFL, has actually been a money-making scheme for the NFL.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 4, 2007 Former Pentagon Staff Speaks Out on Crimes of Doug Feith, Dick Cheney, and Planning of Iran War
The following is a remarkable interview of Karen Kwiatkowski who retired from the active duty USAF as a Lieutenant Colonel in early 2003. Her final assignment was in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Under Secretary for Policy Near East South Asia (NESA) Policy directorate. In her responses below, Kwiatkowski describes the manipulation of intelligence on Iraq and Iran and what it would take to avoid an Iran war.
(21 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 29, 2019 17 Articles of Impeachment for Trump, and 1 for Pence Too
Violation of Constitution on Domestic Emoluments
Violation of Constitution on Foreign Emoluments
Incitement of Violence
Interference With Voting Rights
Discrimination Based On Religion
Illegal War
Illegal Threat of Nuclear War
Abuse of Pardon Power
Obstruction of Justice
Politicizing Prosecutions
Collusion Against the United States with a Foreign Government . . . .
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 7, 2019 West Point Professor Builds a Case Against the U.S. Army
West Point Professor Tim Bakken's new book The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the U.S. Military traces a path of corruption, barbarism, violence, and unaccountability that makes its way from the United States' military academies (West Point, Annapolis, Colorado Springs) to the top ranks of the U.S. military and U.S. governmental policy, and from there into a broader U.S. culture . . .
(21 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 13, 2011 Occupied -- What Now?
Thanks in large part to the New York and national corporate media a massive campaign to shift power away from giant corporations and into the hands of the people is now afoot all across this continent. It was inspired by peoples' nonviolent uprisings in other countries and sparked by courageous nonviolence on Wall Street.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, November 13, 2009 Authoritative Rejection of Afghanistan War
Even on its own terms defending the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq as validated by experts is a miserable failure.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, February 14, 2011 The Worst Thing Ever Invented
Combating evil is what peace activists do. It is not what wars do.
(53 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 14, 2016 The Pro-Nuclear War Party
According to a Wall Street Journal report, the following people and entities would like the United States to begin a nuclear war: Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, the U.K., France, Japan, South Korea, and Germany. If any of those people or entities believe they can prove a case of libel, it might be a huge one. (Are you listening, Rupert?)
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 7, 2006 Command Rape
Suzanne Swift's story begins in an all-too-familiar way. A dead-end job, a friendly military recruiter, a promise that signing-up as military police would mean no deployment to Iraq, a broken promise, and a trip to war.
(24 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 24, 2017 The War Horror Has Begun
Here we are on Day 5 of the Donald Trump presidency, and he's got "special" forces of the U.S. military in two-thirds of the world's nations. He's engaged in serious occupation and/or bombing campaigns in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. He just sent malicious robot airplanes armed with missiles to blow to pieces a bunch of vaguely-identified but never indicted "criminals" in Yemen.
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, October 28, 2011 Occupy The Winter Of Our Discontent
Can occupations survive a winter of global weirding, escalated police brutality, and the corporate media's venom? Should they?
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 29, 2009 No, We're Not a Broken People
In 2004 I began speaking at rallies and forums around the country on issues of peace and justice, something I've done off-and-on ever since. Up through 2008, it was extremely unusual for questions from the audience to consist of pure defeatism. In 2009, it was rare to get through a Q&A session without being asked what the point was of trying.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 1, 2008 Building Our Own Media
We will never succeed without media, and we will never succeed at media by criticism and legislation alone. We must build our own.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, July 20, 2009 Not What Obama Promised
In six months as president, Barack Obama has aggressively done the opposite of many specific things he explicitly and unequivocally promised as a candidate. A lot of these were things Obama's fiercest opponents never wanted. And Obama's fiercest supporters favor censoring this information. But if we expect public servants to be public servants, the public must know the facts, make of them what it will.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 20, 2014 Operation Nazification
Annie Jacobsen's new book is called Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America. It isn't terribly secret anymore, of course, and it was never very intelligent.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 1, 2007 New NSA Whistleblower Speaks
A former member of U.S. military intelligence has decided to reveal what she knows about warrantless spying on Americans and about the fixing of intelligence in the leadup to the invasion of Iraq.
(18 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 8, 2015 Putin Wants to Eat Your Children
If U.S. television and politicians started saying that Saudi Arabia should be bombed because it kills and tortures innocent people, within a week many millions of Americans would demand just that. And because those voices do say that about ISIS, many millions of Americans do favor a war on ISIS.
(10 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 15, 2013 Screaming in Bradley Manning's Trial
I sat in the courtroom all day on Wednesday as Bradley Manning's trial wound its way to a tragic and demoralizing conclusion. I wanted to hear Eugene Debs, and instead I was trapped there, watching Socrates reach for the hemlock and gulp it down. Just a few minutes in and I wanted to scream or shout.
(9 comments) SHARE Monday, May 14, 2018 Forces of Corruption Are Horrified of a Trump Impeachment
If you do a daily web search for "impeachment," here's what you'll get used to seeing. Most use of impeachment is outside the United States. Most use of impeachment within the United States is outside of Washington, D.C. Most media mention of impeachment in relation to Trump is strongly opposed to it and to the small-d democratic threat it holds for those in power.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 15, 2016 Who Killed the People of California? Should Kaepernick Protest His Uniform?
As long as we're opening our eyes to unpleasant history hiding in plain sight, it's worth asking why the 49ers is not a team name that everyone associates with genocide. Why isn't Kaepernick protesting his uniform?
SHARE Wednesday, March 30, 2011 Our Billion Dollar Turd Sandwich
So President Obama has been quoted calling his war in Libya a turd sandwich, while Juan Cole calls it philanthropy, and Ed Schultz praises it as vengeance against this month's Adolph Hitler.
(23 comments) SHARE Monday, June 23, 2014 So That's Why They Kept the Drone Kill Memo Secret
Now that the U.S. government has released parts of its We-Can-Kill-People-With-Drones memo, it's hard to miss why it was kept secret until now.
(19 comments) SHARE Monday, March 23, 2015 The Russian Military Asked Me to Publish Its Propaganda
On Friday, March 20th, I spoke at the University of the District of Columbia Law School in Washington, D.C., as part of a series of teach-ins about peace organized by SpringRising.org. While there, a young man in a suit with a Russian accent approached me.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, June 11, 2010 It's Not a "Defense" Department
The U.S. military budget, and the add-on war budget, and the total of the two have all been headed upwards for years and have been headed upwards for the past year and a half.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 14, 2010 Richard Holbrooke's Deathbed Conversion
For all the talk of strategic counterinsurgency that oozes out of Washington, and all the manuals explaining that 80% of our investment in a nation-building operation should be civilian, we've been investing about 3% of our efforts in Afghanistan into a civilian project the leader of which has described it as a way to support the military. That leader was, until he died yesterday, Richard Holbrooke.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 30, 2011 King George III Won: Happy Fourth of July!
When you read the Declaration of Independence, it turns out to be an indictment of King George III for various abuses of power. And those abuses of power look fairly similar to abuses of power we happily permit U.S. presidents to engage in today, either as regards the people of this nation or the people of territories and nations that our military occupies today in a manner uncomfortably resembling Britain's rule.
(12 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 12, 2009 Baucus Arrests Five More Doctors, Nurses, Activists
As Chairman Max Baucus called the hearing to order, about 20 members of the California Nurses Association (CNA) stood and turned their backs on the committee.
SHARE Wednesday, January 15, 2020 New York City Prepares Nuclear Option
There really only is one option when it comes to nuclear weapons, and that is to do everything we can to abolish them before they abolish us. New York City Council will be voting on January 28, 2020, to do its part by voting on two measures that already have enough sponsors to give them veto-proof majorities.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 17, 2014 Putin Shot Down a Plane! Putin Shot Down a " What? Never Mind
Search for "Malaysian Airlines Flight 17" on the New York Times website and you'll find a page promoting three articles from July, two hyping the idea that Russia did it and one just focused on the horror of it.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 19, 2011 BP Is Messing With the Wrong Woman
A year ago BP began filling the Gulf of Mexico with oil. Last week BP blocked a woman from entering its annual meeting. Which will prove the bigger mistake?
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 15, 2017 My letter to Larry Flynt on Trump Impeachment
Larry Flynt,
Your grounds for impeachment #s 2 through 6 (plus that of the paragraph that follows them) are already documented by overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence. What is required is to recognize that and to remove from the list the impediment of the ground you have placed as #1 which helps create the illusion of requiring more information.
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 18, 2018 Greatest Crime on Earth
Remarks at No Bases Conference in Dublin, Ireland, November 18, 2018
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 7, 2017 76 Years of Pearl Harbor Lies
Donald Trump is tweeting about a particular spot in Hawaii. He visited it recently on his way to threaten war in Asia. It's a big feature this week in lots of U.S. magazines and newspapers. It has a lovely name that sounds like murder and blood because Japanese airplanes engaged in large-scale murder there in 1941: Pearl Harbor.
(15 comments) SHARE Monday, October 1, 2012 Nothing More Evil
If you try to think of something more evil than what we are now doing, you'll fail.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 15, 2015 The Washington Post Will Kill Us All
"War with Iran is probably our best option." This is an actual headline from the Washington Post.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, May 16, 2011 60 More Days in Libya: Obama Does Bush Lawyers Proud
Now we know why Obama has gone to such outrageous lengths to keep Bush's lawyers out of prison, claiming powers of secrecy and immunity beyond Cheney's wildest dreams and pressuring foreign nations to clamp down on any outbreaks of law enforcement.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 30, 2015 Invest in Activism, Not Bernie Sanders
The real question is not whether the next President will be a walking disaster, but what sort of popular movement will have been developed to resist it.
(18 comments) SHARE Friday, September 5, 2008 Why We're Planning to Prosecute Cheney and Bush
Next weekend in Andover, Mass., a group of attorneys, academics, and activists will gather to plan the prosecution of Dick Cheney, George Bush, and the lawyers and advisors who, together with them, are responsible for war crimes. The conference is open to the public and expected to be well attended: http://war-crimes.info
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 14, 2012 Is Impeachment Gone for Good?
Henry Kissinger's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize didn't, in the end, eliminate satire from the earth (or peace prizes for war-makers, for that matter). Conceivably, the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the lack of impeachment of George W. Bush haven't eliminated presidential impeachment from the Constitution.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, March 16, 2009 Torture Revealed Yet again
As with the evidence that Bush, Cheney, and gang intentionally lied us into a war, or the evidence of illegal and unconstitutional spying, each time a major new piece of evidence of torture emerges, it is impossible not to hope that this is the one that will compel the Justice Department or Congress or the courts or the American people to act decisively.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 24, 2012 Now That Was a Debate
Participating were Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson, Virgil Goode, and Gary Johnson.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 16, 2017 Pull Down That Statue of the U.S. Constitution
The U.S. Constitution, along with the Declaration of Independence, has a whole marble building dedicated to its worship: the National Archives in D.C., plus the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. It's generally taught in U.S. schools as something in the past, not something to be improved upon -- hardly even to be questioned.
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 22, 2017 Why Impeach Donald Trump
What are the grounds for impeachment?
They will likely be piling up rapidly. President Trump did use Day 1 to advise the CIA that the United States should have stolen all of Iraq's oil. But here is a place to start. We already have a president who is violating two clauses in the U.S. Constitution, one forbidding any gifts or benefits from foreign governments, the other forbidding the same from the U.S. or states.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, March 27, 2015 Can Anne Hathaway Help End the Mindset That Creates Wars?
Can it matter that a famous actress will play a drone pilot on stage in New York and play it as a troubled murderer with an updated effort to wash out the damn spot of blood on her famous hands?
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 24, 2017 UVA's Miller Center Plans Three Days of Russophobia
Even as some Democrats are at long last growing frustrated with the lack of actual evidence for the past several months of stories about Russia stealing a U.S. election, Russiagate has penetrated so deeply that Trump's ambassador to the United Nations has declared Russia's alleged crimes to be acts of war. That Russia's fictional actions being warfare would make Donald Trump guilty of treason is really a minor glitch ...
(13 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 22, 2010 2011: Year of Resistance
You say protests are outmoded because the corporate media ignores them (unless they're corporate sponsored). I say the corporate media is outmoded because it ignores protests.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Will War Ever End?
I wrote recently about the possibility of outgrowing the use of war. Today I got a book in the mail that makes a strong argument intended as a tool for ending war.
(14 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 13, 2011 What Eisenhower Got Wrong
Fifty years ago this Monday, President Dwight Eisenhower gave a farewell address in which he famously warned of the dangers of influence on our government by the "military industrial complex."
(19 comments) SHARE Monday, December 9, 2019 If You're Not Busy Plotting Nonviolent Revolution for Peace and Climate, You're Busy Dying
Roger Hallam is of course right in his short book, Common Sense for the 21st Century: Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown and Social Collapse. While some portion of humanity heaps scorn on the victims of the fossil fuel propaganda who deny climate science, only a much smaller portion points out the equally delusional and disastrous denial of the need for nonviolent revolution.
(48 comments) SHARE Friday, January 27, 2017 Does Rachel Maddow Want Russia Bombed?
Here's why I ask. Maddow devotes many minutes on MSNBC stirring up hatred of Russia in order to establish that there is a vague possibility that President Donald Trump might be corrupted by a foreign government.
But that's already established beyond any doubt.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 7, 2018 Bernie Sanders Hits on Winning Message He Avoided in 2016
A video has shown up on Senator Bernie Sanders' Facebook page, with his name on it and his face in it making all the familiar (to a small number of people) points about U.S. military spending (how much it is, how it compares to the rest of the world, how it does not produce jobs, what wonders could be achieved with a small fraction of it, etc.).
(40 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 23, 2008 Nadler Is Blocking Impeachment
A private off-the-record meeting was held on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that included House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Subcommittee on the Constitution Chairman Jerrold Nadler, Judiciary Committee Member and advocate for opening Cheney impeachment hearings Robert Wexler, and several other committee members, activists, staffers, and former staffers from the Watergate days. I wasn't there, so I'm free to talk...
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, March 29, 2010 The Bases of Empire
I just read a great book on a topic that that has never made it onto US TV or the mainstream press, nor has it been an issue in any presidential or congressional election. And yet it deals with one of our largest government programs: The US maintains a thousand military bases in 177 nations around the world.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 23, 2007 MoveOn.org Versus Its Members
MoveOn polled its membership without including the Lee alternative, offering a choice of only Pelosi's plan or nothing. Amazingly, Eli Pariser of MoveOn has admitted that the reason MoveOn did this was because they knew that their members would favor the Lee amendment.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 13, 2018 Militarism Mapped
World BEYOND War has just released an updated 2018 mapping of militarism in the world.
(10 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 25, 2014 The Limits of MSNBC
Michael Arria's new book Medium Blue: The Politics of MSNBC is a nice summary of how a liberal corporate or liberal partisan television network falls short.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, November 11, 2019 If Voting Is So Important, Why Aren't Fair, Open, Verifiable Elections Important?
It's impossible in U.S. society not to frequently encounter the demand to vote, no matter what, no matter for whom, as a basic civic duty. Voting is supremely important, we're told, a right, a responsibility, a moral requirement, something people died for which if you don't use (even if it's useless) you will effectively be pissing on their graves.
SHARE Tuesday, August 27, 2019 10 Ways We Pretend War Is Not a Crime and How to Change Them
Happy Kellogg-Briand Pact Day! As you all know, but most people do not, the Peace Pact was signed 91 years ago today. And, as you all probably know, but most people do not, the inspiration and vision and endless labor behind it came from a mass movement begun and led, not by Mr. Kellogg or Monsieur Briand but by a lawyer from Chicago named Salmon Oliver Levinson.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 9, 2019 Trump's Opponents Have Him Beat . . . When It Comes to Incompetence
If Trump were to finally shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, Nancy Pelosi and Jerrold Nadler and company would not declare it acceptable, absolutely not. But what they would do would be to open a months-long investigation into the history of the victim, what Trump had said earlier in the day, who had manufactured the gun, and above all what foreign government they could blame it on.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 12, 2020 Why This Election Is Different
Elections, I think most of us can agree, usually bring out the idiocy, superficiality, and illogic in everyone who can muster any. If we care about the earth, let's declare it time to stop being morons.
Why would anyone elect another same-old schmuck? Why is this even a question? A billionaire who buys his way in & lies about his racially targeted sadism? A slimy small-town mayor who backs what billionaires tell him to back?
(20 comments) SHARE Monday, May 4, 2009 Give Everyone Healthcare By Shutting Insurance Companies
Our nation has more money than any other, more weapons than all the others combined, and a majority of its citizens believing it is, in some undefined sense, superior.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 24, 2016 Rep. Rick Larsen Bases Russia Policy on Myth
"Larsen immediately responded with rebuttals, stating flat-out he didn't believe there was a U.S. role in the Ukrainian events -- that what I'd just told him was 'not what I've been hearing' - and he went on to talk about how the Baltic states felt threatened by Russia, etc."
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, June 5, 2017 Brad Pitt Does Stanley McChrystal: When Netflix' War Movie Stops Being Funny
The new movie, War Machine, on Netflix starring Brad Pitt begins as a hilarious and satisfying mockery of General Stanley McChrystal, circa 2009, as well as of militarism in general. Hilarious because of the deadpan sincere idiocy. Satisfying at least to those of us who have been screaming "What are you idiots doing?" for the past fifteen-and-a-half years.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 8, 2012 The Election We Should Be Following
The incumbents are both Democrats, both white, both 65, and many imagine that they do similar work in Washington. In fact, they could not be more different.
SHARE Saturday, May 6, 2006 Wrongly Convicted, Almost Executed, Awarded $2.25 Million
$2.25 million to Earl Washington, whom the state of Virginia came within days of killing for a crime he had been clumsily and obviously framed for. Washington is mentally retarded, poor, and black.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Lincoln Chafee Calls Bush Worst President in History
Former Republican Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee on Tuesday evening called George W. Bush the worst president in U.S. history and the occupation of Iraq the worst foreign tragedy in U.S. history. Chafee said Bush deserved to be impeached.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 1, 2010 Why New Evidence Demands End to Wars
With Wikileaks Revelations, Peace Community Redoubles Demand for End to Wars and Voices Support for Whistleblowers
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 11, 2014 The Lawlessness of the Enforce the Law Act
Not being mush of a masochist, I don't usually read emails from the Democratic Whip in Congress, but I opened one Tuesday night and was mildly excited to read that the U.S. House of Representatives would spend Wednesday debating the "ENFORCE the Law Act of 2014."
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 14, 2018 What Else Canadians Should Be Sorry For -- Besides Burning the White House
Six-years after the British landing at Jamestown, with the settlers struggling to survive and hardly managing to get their own local genocide underway, these new Virginians hired mercenaries to attack Acadia and (fail to) drive the French out of what they considered their continent.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 2, 2011 Will Sweden Kill Assange?
Now, Sweden has an opportunity to punish the speech of a Nobel Peace Prize nominee with the death penalty by extraditing Julian Assange to the United States to be put on trial.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 13, 2010 Corporatocracy and Its Discontents
The greatest threat to free speech is the monopolization of speech by some vociferous defenders of free speech.
SHARE Monday, January 15, 2018 Letter from Charlottesville to Ukraine
Nazi rallies in the news in recent years have most prominently been held here in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, and in Ukraine. I want to send thoughts of solidarity to those in Ukraine resisting fascism. And I want to let you know that some of us are urging our government in Washington, D.C., to stop supporting fascism both in the United States and in Ukraine. In addition, we are pointing to the examples being set by so many
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 24, 2016 More U.S. troops killed by Halliburton than by Iraqis
The U.S. government, from Dick Cheney to Hillary Clinton, told blatant lies about the Iraqi government creating chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in 2002, despite having been informed of the fact that Iraq was doing no such thing. U.S. leaders lied about ties between Iraq and terrorists that they also knew did not exist.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 24, 2018 The Decline and Fall of the State Department
Ronan Farrow's book War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence recounts episodes from the Obama-Trump militarization of U.S. foreign policy. While the book begins with and has been marketed with the story of Trump firing lots of key diplomats and leaving positions unfilled, much of its content is from the pre-Trump, Obama-era and even Bush-era erosion of diplomacy as something distinct from war.
(15 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 24, 2009 Groups Request Special Prosecutor for Bush, Cheney, et alia
We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 25, 2011 Us Army Assaults Its Biggest Fan
One of the most valuable benefits of putting political action into the form of nonviolent encampments is that we learn each other's stories as we occupy our public parks and squares. Here's a story from the October2011 occupation in Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 27, 2015 A Waroholic Wishes You Peace on Earth
Imagine an alcoholic who managed every night to get ahold of and consume huge quantities of whiskey and who every morning swore that drinking whiskey had been his very last resort, he'd had no choice at all.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, November 21, 2008 Congress Opposes Bush Pardons
Nadler Introduces Resolution Opposing Possible Bush Pardons of His Own Subordinates for Crimes He Authorized
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 20, 2011 There Must Be 50 Ways to Leave the Military Industrial Complex
And we heard all of them from two dozen brilliant speakers during a three-day conference this past weekend. If you missed it, the video is all online. So is the text of many of the papers presented. Here are a few excerpts to whet your appetite:
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 25, 2017 We're Dealing With a New Type of War Lie
The claims about Russia are unique in their wide proliferation, broad acceptance, and status as something to be constantly referred to as though already established, constantly augmented by other Russia-related stories that add nothing to the central claim.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 29, 2009 Hurricane Dubya Four Years On
Hurricane Katrina is not as sexy as torture, but has killed more people and ruined more lives, and -- like many non-natural disasters in recent years -- has a chief culprit who has now settled in at 10141 Daria Place, Dallas, Texas, where he clears very little brush and where -- to my knowledge -- not a single politician or journalist or author has sought his wisdom on the affairs of the past seven months. George W. Bush, who
(23 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 22, 2013 A New Kind of War Is Being Legalized
There's a dark side to the flurry of reports and testimony on drones, helpful as they are in many ways.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 13, 2018 Sweden's Military Madness
The government of Sweden has reinstated the military draft and sent a war propaganda brochure to all Swedes promoting fear, Russophobia, and warlike thinking.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, October 22, 2021 King George Was More Democratic Than American Revolutionaries
According to the Smithsonian Magazine - brought to you by the folks with museums up and down the National Mall in Washington D.C. - King George III was the democrat and humanitarian in 1776.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 14, 2008 Democrats Pass Contempt, Republicans Leave the Room
I know a lot of you may hold Congress in contempt, but on Thursday Congress voted to hold someone else in contempt. Here's what happened:
SHARE Monday, August 26, 2019 Love It or Leave It
Imagine a dystopian future in which every person in the United States is given free and total and preventative heath care from whatever doctors and nurses they want, but CNN talking heads pine sorrowfully for their beloved insurance companies.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 1, 2018 Why Ocasio-Cortez' Platform Is So Great
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' platform is dramatically better than many may realize. It tackles the greatest evil in existence in a way that no other big-2 congressional candidate's website does and which most do not even mention. And in doing so, it makes serious much of the rest of her socialist platform in a way that even presidential candidate Bernie Sanders did not -- a way promoted by the peace movement, the Poor People's...
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 14, 2014 Local Police and Much Else Will Be Militarized As Long As Federal Government Is
The militarization of local police in the United States is related to the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, which has now reached the point that bombing and "doing nothing" are generally conceived as the only two choices available. Local police are being militarized as a result of these factors:
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, November 1, 2010 It's Jobs or Wars, Not Both
Americans, if they knew, would seriously object to further damaging our economy through war and allowing people like David Broder to paper over that process with demonstrably false claims.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 4, 2015 Film: Costa Rica Abolished its Military, Never Regretted it
The forthcoming film, A Bold Peace: Costa Rica's Path of Demilitarization, should be given every possible means of support and promotion. After all, it documents the blatant violation of laws of physics, human nature, and economics, as understood in the United States -- and the violators seem positively gleeful about it.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 28, 2015 ISIS Derangement Syndrome
The question is not whether to make the disaster worse, but exactly how to do it.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, March 27, 2020 Is Coronavirus a bioweapon?
The Washington Post's article opposing such a conclusion admits the following: The lab in Wuhan "was researching coronaviruses transmitted by bats." And "[a]n annual State Department report released last year said China had engaged 'in biological activities with potential dual-use applications.'" And that at least one expert worried about potential outbreaks from that lab. And that other experts ...
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 16, 2012 Occupy Bilderberg
We protest the G-8 and NATO, but not Bilderberg. Why?
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 23, 2010 U.S. Laws Rated Worst Value Per Dollar
A new international survey rates U.S. federal and state laws the worst legislative value in the world. The study considered laws' impact on human lives, and the price paid for laws in campaign contributions, issue advertising, lobbying, ear marks, and bribes.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 19, 2011 NPR Gets Producer Fired for Occupying
National Public Radio on Wednesday discovered that a woman named Lisa Simeone who produced a show about opera called "World of Opera" had been participating in a nonviolent occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., organized by October2011.org. That same day, NPR persuaded a company for which Simeone worked to fire her.
(15 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 12, 2020 27 Things You Can Do to Let There Be Peace on Earth
1. Reports on the climate collapse have stopped in some cases the nonsense talk about needing the United States to "lead," and even gone beyond urging it to get out of last place, and begun demanding that it do its fair share to undo its share of the damage. That's the same thing we need on militarism . . .
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 20, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Ray McGovern on Russia and Syria
Ray McGovern has been studying/analyzing Russia for more than five decades, both in academe and government. A senior analyst at the CIA during the 80s, he also conducted early morning briefings, one-on-one, of the President's Daily Brief for President Reagan's most senior foreign policy advisers.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 17, 2010 When Woolsey Met Harman
Jane Harman has never seen a war she didn't like or a crime by anyone important that she couldn't excuse.
SHARE Tuesday, September 8, 2015 Tom Petty Releases New Song on Refugee Crisis
Iraq wasn't really hiding WMD baby
We believed what we want to believe
You see the wars are what make all the refugees
... the wars are what make all the refugees
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 3, 2009 Demand Single-Payer March 5, 10, 11
If you want everyone in the United States to have health coverage simply paid for by the government for less money than we spend now, eliminating all health insurance companies, but allowing you to choose any private doctor or hospital of your choice, and boosting the economy with a net gain of 2.6 million jobs ...
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 21, 2010 The New War Congress: An Obama-Republican War Alliance?
To understand just how bad the 112th Congress, elected on November 2nd and taking office on January 3rd, is likely to be for peace on Earth, one has to understand how incredibly awful the 110th and 111th Congresses have been during the past four years and then measure the ways in which things are likely to become even worse.
(23 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Full Text of Articles of Impeachment
Congressman Dennis Kucinich Introduced 35 Articles of Impeachment Against President Bush on Monday Night
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 24, 2009 The 45th President
Imagine the next president is the worst you can conceive of. Now, let's stop to consider what powers #45 will inherit from the previous 44 men, what powers have been used by at least one previous president in recent years without being blocked by Congress or the courts or a subsequent president: the powers to rewrite laws with signing statements, to create laws by simple decree, to draft and act on secret laws...
SHARE Wednesday, February 19, 2020 You Have to Laugh
It's often hard to report on U.S. politics and government with a straight face. It's even harder to report on the usual reporting on U.S. politics and government with a straight face. So much of it is beyond the reach of parody. Yet it also opens up opportunities to shock people with basic facts.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, May 4, 2015 The U.S. Bill of Rights Rewritten to Match Reality
There just might be a big boost in government honesty soon, as both houses of Congress have now passed with two-thirds votes and sent to the states for ratification a potential 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution bearing the unofficial title "The Truth in Advertising Amendment." This is the text as passed by Congress:
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 5, 2017 Stop Allowing YOUR Emperor to Threaten Nuclear Apocalypse
North Korea is open to reasonable negotiations. The United States, as embodied in the buffoon whom we have allowed to hold more power than any royal monarch has ever known, would prefer armageddon to reasonable negotiations.
These are not speculations.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, March 9, 2015 A Global Security System: An Alternative to War
World Beyond War has just published a short book titled A Global Security System: An Alternative to War.
This act constitutes an intervention into the debate over whether to create a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force. In fact, this document should help stimulate a debate over whether to continue with the war approach to global conflicts, authorized or not.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, September 7, 2020 Kevin Zeese: Irreplaceable
Kevin Zeese was a major constant reliable presence in the movement for peace and justice.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, February 6, 2015 The Key That Is the Saudi Kingdom
Was the United States compelled to attack Afghanistan and Iraq by the events of September 11, 2001?
A key to answering that rather enormous question may lie in the secrets that the U.S. government is keeping about Saudi Arabia.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 6, 2011 Manchurian Senators
People are doing journalism and the Washington Post is pissed.
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 26, 2012 The End Is Near
Apocalypse has been given a bad name. The Seventh Day Adventists are still around. The Nike sneaker cult failed to open Heaven's Gate. The new millennium brought us George W. Bush, not Jesus H. Christ. And everybody's terrified of "drinking the Kool-Aid."
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 15, 2010 The Crematorium of Empires
On Wednesday U.S. senators from both political parties asked the president's representative to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke what in the world the goal could be for the ongoing war. He had no answer.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, April 11, 2014 Rumsfeld Personifies Our Society
In a new film about Rumsfeld called The Unknown Knowns, the aging criminal is occasionally confronted with evidence that what he's just said is false.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 3, 2008 Rep. Mike Michaud Writes to Conyers Calling for Cheney Impeachment Hearings
Congressman Mike Michaud, a conservative and Blue Dog Democrat from Maine sent a letter over the holiday break to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers calling for impeachment hearings of Vice President Dick Cheney.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, June 23, 2017 You'll Never Guess What Losing Democrats All Have in Common
It was curious to observe how much of Jeremy Corbyn's successful campaign to rebuild the Labour Party was about foreign policy. Wars, he said, make us less safe, not more. Agreeing with him were: the obvious facts of the matter, voters in opinion polls, and apparently voters in their votes.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 18, 2017 Ethics of Not Ruining Everything
Today I listened to the audio book of Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationship With Animals by Lori Gruen while reading the hardcopy of From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds by Daniel Dennett.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 26, 2017 What's Missing from Dunkirk Film
Yes, I'm going to tell you what's missing from this film without watching the film. Trump has, as promised, made me so sick of winning that I really could enjoy watching a defeat film, but I think I'll pass. If I'm wrong about what's missing from it (I mean one of the many things that are, no doubt, missing from it), I promise that I will eat an entire plan for victory in Afghanistan annually for the next decade.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 8, 2011 Fahrenheit 11-11-11
Believe it or not, November 11th was not made a holiday in order to celebrate war, support troops, or cheer the 11th year of occupying Afghanistan. This day was made a holiday in order to celebrate an armistice that ended what was up until that point, in 1918, one of the worst things our species had thus far done to itself, namely World War I.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 6, 2011 Killing Old People Is Fiscally Responsible
"The fiscal good has to outweigh the pain," a nameless Democrat told the Washington Post regarding President Obama's latest proposal to massively cut Social Security.
SHARE Friday, April 3, 2020 One Earth, One Chance: Six Activists Discuss Climate
Here's a video I encourage you to watch above or at this LINK. The part that I'm in, which addresses climate and war, starts around minute 40, but I encourage you to watch the whole thing.
(13 comments) SHARE Friday, January 14, 2011 How Is Bradley Manning Really Being Treated?
There are conflicting accounts of exactly how Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower on countless U.S. government crimes, has been illegally punished for 8 months so far, pre-trial.
SHARE Tuesday, April 16, 2013 Vieques 10 Years After the Bombing Stopped
Ten years ago May 1, the people of Vieques, Puerto Rico and their supporters from around the world defeated the most powerful military machine ever, through mass civil disobedience and without firing a single shot.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 23, 2017 Trump's Articles of Impeachment: A Greatest Hits Collection
Several years back, I led a team of authors drafting articles of impeachment against then-President George W. Bush for then-Congressman Dennis Kucinich. We drafted over 60 and settled on the best 35.
(15 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 12, 2014 Building a Global Movement to End All War
I've been involved in starting enough activist campaigns and coalitions to know when one has more potential than any other I've seen.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 21, 2012 How Newt Gingrich Saved the Military Industrial Complex
The idea of economic conversion, of retooling and retraining pieces of the military industrial complex to build what other wealthy nations have (infrastructure, energy, education, etc.) converged with the end of the Cold War two decades back.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 17, 2016 Best Speech a U.S. President Ever Gave
In planning an upcoming conference and nonviolent action aimed at challenging the institution of war, with the conference to be held at American University, I can't help but be drawn to the speech a U.S. president gave at American University a little more than 50 years ago. Whether or not you agree with me that this is the best speech ever given by a U.S. president, there should be little dispute that it is the speech ...
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 3, 2020 Ode to That Thing By Joe Biden
Why why why why why you're getting nervous man.
Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.
And cornpop was a bad dude and he ran a bunch of bad boys.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men and women are created by the ko you know the you know the thing.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 5, 2023 Join Me in New York with the Golden Rule
The Golden Rule is a beautiful boat. I've been on it in San Diego. It's also an important boat. It set sail in 1958 to stop nuclear testing in the atmosphere, and inspired many peace makers and peace ships that followed. The restored Golden Rule is voyaging once more, sailed by Veterans For Peace, to show that a nuclear peace is possible, and that bravery and tenacity can overcome militarism.
SHARE Thursday, July 9, 2015 Call for Sanity on Sixtieth Anniversary of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto
Sixty years after Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell issued their manifesto about the growing threat of world war, the globe continues to face the prospect of nuclear annihilation -- coupled with the looming threat of climate change.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 15, 2011 Of Humans and Rights
In our current wars, well over 95% of the dead, even in the short-term, are from the countries where the wars are fought. Some get labeled combatants and some civilians, but they're all left out of most body counts, and when they are counted they are counted low. Our government pretends not to count them at all, and only thanks to Wikileaks do we know otherwise, that the military has counted some of them.
(27 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 20, 2014 Can We Really Blame Sociopaths?
I've been hearing increasingly from multiple quarters that the root of our problems is psychopaths and sociopaths and other loosely defined but definitely different beings from ourselves. Rob Kall has produced a quite interesting series of articles and interviews on the subject. I want to offer some words of caution if not respectful dissent.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 14, 2023 Act Now to Save Ukrainian Peace Activist from Prosecution
We've just learned that the office of the prosecutor and the "security service" of Ukraine have published press releases claiming to have put a stop to the activities of the "vicious Russian propagandist Yurii Sheliazhenko."
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 5, 2018 Russia Is Our Friend
I make the following case because I think it is overwhelming yet fervently ignored. I'll just note a few highlights.
SHARE Wednesday, November 26, 2014 There Goes Virginia's Climate
Five-year averages of temperature in Virginia began a significant and steady increase in the early 1970s, rising from 54.6 degrees Fahrenheit then to 56.2 degrees F in 2012.
SHARE Tuesday, March 29, 2011 Obama on Libya: What Would MLK Say?
President Obama on Monday said he would "never hesitate" to use the U.S. military "unilaterally" to defend "interests" and "values," including "maintaining the flow of commerce."
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 16, 2020 #CNNisTrash
Why has the hash tag #CNNisTrash been popular since this week's presidential primary debate? There was nothing new about the corporate, militarist, anti-progressive slant of the debate "moderation." What was new was the level of blatant bias so extreme that even viewers who knew nothing about the issues couldn't miss it, plus the amount of time CNN focused on expressing its hostility toward a single candidate, Bernie Sanders.
(18 comments) SHARE Monday, August 1, 2011 To Whom Do We Now Turn?
I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, July 1, 2011 John Dean Does Not Know How to Get Rid of Clarence Thomas
But Dean left out of consideration one strategy, the same one that five years ago he argued against pursuing with Bush and Cheney, whom many of us at that time wanted removed from office.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 5, 2015 How Did Syria Get Here?
Wars may be how Americans learn geography, but do they always learn the history of how the geography was shaped by wars? I've just read Syria: A History of the Last Hundred Years by John McHugo. It's very heavy on the wars, which is always a problem with how we tell history, since it convinces people that war is normal. But it also makes clear that war wasn't always normal in Syria.
(21 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 18, 2018 Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Weakness of Science
In a recent interview on National Pentagon Radio, Neil deGrasse Tyson discussed the interactions between (1) the U.S. military and (2) astrophysics.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, June 8, 2015 A View From the Other 96%
Exposing Lies of Empire by Andre Vltchek is an 800-page tour of the world between 2012 and 2015 without a Western tour guide. It ought to make you spitting-mad furious, then grateful for the enlightenment, and then ready to get to work.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 21, 2018 Why 55 U.S. Senators Voted for Genocide in Yemen
Tuesday's debate and vote in the U.S. Senate on whether to end (technically whether or not to vote on whether to end) U.S. participation in the war on Yemen can certainly be presented as a step forward. While 55 U.S. Senators voted to keep the war rolling along, 44 voted not to table the resolution to end it.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 16, 2010 Will Sanity Be Restored and Fear Be Kept Alive?
"It's not meant to ridicule activism," Jon Stewart tells NPR, speaking of his planned rally on the National Mall. But you can see where someone might have gotten that impression.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 11, 2015 Peace: More Normal and Wonderful Than We Think
How might we get to a world that doesn't plan and produce wars but lives at peace economically, environmentally, culturally, and legally? How might we switch to systems that avoid conflicts and settle unavoidable conflicts nonviolently?
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 16, 2016 The Saudi 203 Pages
For years and years, activists demanded that the U.S. government make public 28 (turned out to be 29) pages it had censored from a report, because it was suspected they would show a Saudi Arabian role in funding and facilitating the crimes of September 11, 2001. When the pages were finally made public, they showed a great deal of evidence of exactly that. But the U.S. government and its pet media outlets buried the story ...
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, July 11, 2016 U.S. Plans to Saturate Globe With Weapons
My headline above is a plain English translation of this Pentagonspeak found in a Reuters headline today: "Demand for U.S. arms exports set to keep growing, official says."
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, July 27, 2009 Nine More Go to Jail for Single Payer
Following a pattern of civil resistance in Washington D.C. and around the country, citizens in Des Moines Iowa on Monday risked arrest to press for the creation of single-payer healthcare, the establishment of healthcare as a human right, and an end to the deadly practices of Iowa's largest health insurance company, Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, November 3, 2014 Free College or Another New War?
Noting that U.S. college costs have gone up 500% since 1985, the Washington Post recommends seven countries where U.S. students can go to college for free without bothering to learn the language of the natives or anything so primitive.
SHARE Friday, February 14, 2020 Shut Down Canada Until it Solves its War, Oil, and Genocide Problem
Indigenous people in Canada are giving the world a demonstration of the power of nonviolent action. The justness of their cause defending the land from those who would destroy it for short term profit and the elimination of a habitable climate on earth combined with their courage and the absence on their part of cruelty or hatred, has the potential to create a much larger movement, which is of course the key to success.
(13 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 10, 2011 The Divided Left
The Satan Sandwich budget deal seems to have been left lying on the table in some television green rooms.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 10, 2019 Antiwar Billboards Are Up in Ireland
Limerick, Ireland, now has billboards up at Clare Street, John Street, John Street in Waterford, and Dublin Road in Singland.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 1, 2019 Bernie Sanders Starts Mentioning the Military Budget
Bernie Sanders has added the existence of foreign policy onto the bottom of emails like the one below, after having posted a video of himself quoting the usual Eisenhower quotes on military spending. These changes match the request made when World BEYOND War and RootsAction.org asked 100 prominent people to sign an open letter to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders urging him to address military spending.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, September 4, 2009 There Are So Many Days That Have Not Yet Broken
I got pulled over for speeding in Texas yesterday and the officer looked like the kind of guy who dreamed about using his taser. So when he asked for my license and registration, I slowly got them out and handed them over.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 9, 2017 You Can't Have a Progressive Movement Without Peace
Here's my five-minute case for why you can't have an effective progressive movement in the United States that doesn't include working for peace.
(18 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 20, 2016 Top 10 Reasons Why It's Just Fine for U.S. to Blow Up Children
Is it really necessary for me to explain to you why it's acceptable, necessary, and admirable for the United States and its minor allies to be blowing up houses, families, men, women, and children in Syria?
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, October 26, 2012 John Douglass: Embodiment of a Ruined Election System
In April I had a chat with Congressional candidate John Douglass who had just about wrapped up his party's nomination for Congress here in Virginia's Fifth District.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 30, 2018 What Military-Bashing Teacher Got Right
A high school teacher is no longer teaching, and is receiving threats, because of how he spoke about the U.S. military. To read the news reports, you'd think that all he said was that people who join the military are stupid.
SHARE Friday, October 25, 2019 Peace in Afghanistan
There were whispers in the village, high up in the mountains of Afghanistan. There was a Stranger here. He had made a friend and been invited to live in a home despite not being family, despite probably not even being of the ethnicity or religion of every person who could be trusted.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, September 3, 2007 World War III
The administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is set on a course that leads directly to a third world war. And a third world war leads almost inevitably to most of us dying horrible deaths. And we're not talking about it.
(15 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 26, 2009 Holder Joins Conyers in Demanding Action
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to open a criminal investigation into the misdeeds of former president George W. Bush and former vice president Richard B. Cheney.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, April 10, 2015 Locals Protest, Sabotage U.S. Navy Base Construction in Desert in Sicily
There's a popular movement in Sicily called No MUOS. MUOS means Mobile User Objective System. It's a satellite communications system created by the U.S. Navy. The primary contractor and profiteer building the satellite equipment at the U.S. Navy base in the desert in Sicily is Lockheed Martin Space Systems.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, May 2, 2011 Killing Resolves Nothing
The plane I was on landed in Washington, D.C., Sunday night, and the pilot came on the intercom to tell everyone to celebrate: our government had killed Osama bin Laden. This was better than winning the Super Bowl, he said.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, May 8, 2015 The No More War Movement
On this Mother's Day weekend, recall Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870 which said, "From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession."
SHARE Tuesday, October 15, 2019 Talk Nation Radio: Jeffrey Sterling, CIA Whistleblower, on What He Now Thinks Was the Purpose of Operation Merlin
Jeffrey Sterling is a former CIA case officer who was convicted of violating the Espionage Act and was in federal prison in Colorado. Prior to this program, as far as we know, Sterling had not been asked whether he believes the stated purpose of the program he worked on. Does he really think the purpose of giving obviously flawed nuclear bomb-part plans to Iran was to slow down a nuclear weapons program that may not even have
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 25, 2015 Top 10 Reasons Bill Maher Is Not "Our Best Weapon Against ISIS"
This sort of argument for debunking Islam in the media as the best way to "defeat" ISIS/ISIL misses the fact that ISIS recruits from the United States make up almost certainly much less than 1% of recruits, so that 99% of the problem, even on its own terms, remains completely unsolved.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 9, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Hyun Lee on Prospects for Peace in Korea
Hyun Lee is a New York City-based writer and activist. She is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea. She is also a Korea Policy Institute fellow and a member of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development. Find her work also at ZoomInKorea.org.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 16, 2011 Sociocide: Iraq Is No More
As we approach the 8th anniversary of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, and having just passed the 20th anniversary of another, it's worth reflecting on what's been accomplished through two wars and the intervening sanctions that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright so famously approved of even at the cost of a half million children's lives.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, August 15, 2011 Virginia Militarized
The U.S. military is a permanent and pervasive presence in Virginia. Were the state of Virginia to ban participation in wars of aggression, weapons sales to brutal dictatorships, and the manufacture of aggressive and illegal weapons, the Military Industrial Complex would be obliged to help itself to many billions of public dollars just to cover the cost of moving operations to the other 49 states or abroad.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 8, 2013 Death Penalty Dying Out
Most of the world's governments no longer use the death penalty. Among wealthy nations there is one exception remaining.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 27, 2018 Open Letter to Senator Bernie Sanders
On Wednesday, November 28, 2018, over 100 U.S. scholars, intellectuals, and activists published the open letter to Senator Bernie Sanders below and invited others to add their names to it.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, April 20, 2012 Torture on Trial
Cases come in by the thousands from all over the world.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, October 19, 2015 Past Decade in Syria in 5 Minutes
The accepted story in the United States of what's happened in Syria is just that, a story told to make narrative sense of something completely un-understood.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 12, 2023 When in Rome, Do as the Americans Do?
There may be more U.S. tourists in Rome than Romans. It's hard to get away from them "" impossible if you are yourself one.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 24, 2015 China Lobby Pre-WWII, Israel Lobby Pre-WWIII
One way in which the U.S. government gets itself into major crusades of mass killing is by hearing what it wants to hear. It even goes to the extent of allowing top U.S. government officials, sometimes briefly out the revolving door of public "service," to work in the pay and service of foreign nations pushing war propaganda on the U.S. public.
SHARE Saturday, June 20, 2020 From Freedom of Religion to Coronavirus Denial
The U.S. government was created with the mandate to not establish any state religion or to forbid any religion. There were a couple of ways this could have gone.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 29, 2010 Withdraw the Last Combat Politicians from Washington
Pretending to end a war and occupation, while stationing 50,000 soldiers, 18,000 mercenaries, and 84,000 support contractors in massive and permanent military bases in Iraq is a far cry from what candidate Barack Obama described as ending "the mind-set that got us into war in the first place." It fits better with Nobel Peace laureate Obama's description of war as "not only necessary but morally justified."
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, September 28, 2015 The UN: Pretending to Oppose War for 70 Years
The United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals don't just ignore the fact that development isn't sustainable; they revel in it. One of the goals is spreading energy use. Another is economic growth. Another is preparation for climate chaos (not preventing it, but dealing with it). And how does the United Nations deal with problems? Generally through wars and sanctions.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 12, 2017 The Gathering to Abolish War
Sixteen years of endless wars, endless spending, endless killing, endless dying, endless environmental destruction, endless erosion of our rights, endless suppression of activism, endless militarization of police, endless promotion of bigotry and hatred, endless generation of hatred and terrorism, endless threats of nuclear apocalypse.
Can we make it end now?
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, May 9, 2011 This World and the World Without War
The New York Times published an op-ed on May 7th by a professor here in Charlottesville, Va., arguing that celebrating the killing of Osama bin Laden is actually a good thing, because in so celebrating we are building solidarity with those we view as part of our exclusive group. Implicit in this argument is that we can do no better.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, February 27, 2017 The Choice Trump's Budget Creates
Trump proposes to increase U.S. military spending by $54 billion, and to take that $54 billion out of the other portions of the budget, including in particular, he says, foreign aid. If you can't find foreign aid on the chart, that's because it is a portion of that little dark green slice called International Affairs. To take $54 billion out of foreign aid, you would have to cut foreign aid by approximately 200%.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 14, 2010 Only in America Can Blair Go Out in Public
Blair has just been presented with a Liberty Medal at the Constitution Center by none other than Bill Clinton, as reward for Blair's . . . wait for it . . . "steadfast commitment to conflict resolution."
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, May 23, 2016 Let's Back All Moderates in Syria and the World
I've come around in favor of backing all moderates. The question appeared to me for a long time as a difficult one. Should one give anti-aircraft weaponry, for example, to al Qaeda fighters in Syria in order to better combat ISIS (which could some day develop the airplane)?
SHARE Wednesday, March 19, 2014 Army Makes Case Against Enlisting
Remarkably, the U.S. Army War College has published a report (PDF) that makes an overwhelming case against enlisting in the U.S. Army. The report, called "Civilian Organizational Inhibitors to U.S. Army Recruiting and the Road Ahead," identifies counter-recruitment organizations that effectively discourage young people from joining the military.
(14 comments) SHARE Friday, June 15, 2018 Why Are the Poor Patriotic?
We should be very grateful to Francesco Duina for his new book, Broke and Patriotic: Why Poor Americans Love Their Country. He begins with the following dilemma. The poor in the United States are in many ways worse off than in other wealthy countries, but they are more patriotic than are the poor in those other countries and even more patriotic than are wealthier people in their own country.
(12 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Healthcare and Free Press: Two Human Rights We Lack
Another name for "what's called a single-payer system" would be: healthcare as a human right, not a commodity to be purchased. Many humans have this right. They just aren't Americans.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 30, 2012 Sibel Edmonds Finally Wins
Sibel Edmonds' new book, "Classified Woman," is like an FBI file on the FBI, only without the incompetence.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 27, 2017 How It Could Finally Be Possible to Prosecute War as a Crime
War is a crime. The International Criminal Court has just announced that it will finally treat it as a crime, sort-of, kind-of. But how can war's status as a crime effectively deter the world's leading war-maker from threatening and launching more wars, large and small? How can laws against war actually be put to use? How can the ICC's announcement be made into something more than a pretense?
(10 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 2, 2015 10 Lessons of the Iran Deal
By the latest count, the nuclear agreement with Iran has enough support in the U.S. Senate to survive. This, even more than stopping the missile strikes on Syria in 2013, may be as close as we come to public recognition of the prevention of a war (something that happens quite a bit but generally goes unrecognized and for which there are no national holidays). Here are 10 teachings for this teachable moment.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, February 18, 2013 Hubris Isn't the Half of It
As our government was making a fraudulent case to attack Iraq in 2002-2003, the MSNBC television network was doing everything it could to help, including booting Phil Donahue and Jeff Cohen off the air.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 27, 2017 New York Times and Reaction to It Help Us See Where Nazis Come From
"Imagine being so bad at drumming that you become a Nazi," someone tweeted in response to the recent and scandalous New York Times' article about an Ohio Nazi. "Or at painting," I replied.
SHARE Friday, February 21, 2020 How Are We Going to Pay for Saving Trillions of Dollars?
Enhanced Medicare for All that wild scheme that Michael Bloomberg calls "untried" because it's only been tested for decades in virtually every wealthy nation on earth would cost $450 billion a year less than the current U.S. system. In the usual propaganda terms (in which you multiply by ten and then if asked admit that you're talking about ten years) that's a savings of $4.5 trillion!
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, July 1, 2016 Guess Who Wants Authority to Murder by Drone
If you haven't been hiding under a partisan rock for the past several years, you're aware that President Barack Obama has given himself the sort-of legalish right to murder anyone anywhere with missiles from drones.
He's not the only one who wants that power.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 21, 2009 U.S. Govt. Threatens to Prosecute Waterboarding
The greatest hypocrisy is not that our president is speaking up for protesters as long as they are in Iran, while the Pentagon considers protesting to constitute "low level terrorism" when practiced within the United States. The greatest hypocrisy is that laws are being enforced while the most important laws and the most egregious violations are being ignored as a matter of loudly announced principle.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, May 15, 2015 Top 10 Activist Errors
If you're open to hearing some suggestions, for whatever they may be worth (and yes, of course, this list of errors will exclude those that I am myself guilty and unaware of), read on:
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 20, 2019 Life in Prison
If you're free, if you're not locked behind bars (and I do realize that this is true of a smaller percentage of people in the so-called Land of the Free than anywhere else on earth), be grateful. One thing you can do is get your hands on important new books. I recommend this one: The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences by Marc Mauer and Ashley Nellis, Featuring Six Portraits of Lifers.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 19, 2020 How Do You Blow the Whistle on a Whole Society?
How do major U.S. newspapers and television news programs refer to the murder of an Iranian general? Never with the word murder.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 21, 2014 Everything Wrong With Liberalism in One Image Found on FaceBook
Here's a fairly typical image of a sort that constantly clogs up my FaceBook page. I take it to be the full and open expression of someone or some group's honest outlook. I don't think they'd identify themselves at the bottom as "Jesus, Republicans & Other Bullshit" if they were self-censoring.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 8, 2012 Corporate Personhood Worse, Ending It Easier, Than You Think
Don't take it from me. Take it from the book being published today that will mainstream the movement to end corporate personhood: "Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do, And What You Can Do About It," by Jeff Clements with foreword by Bill Moyers.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 8, 2009 Eliminate Filibuster and With it the Need to Debate Republicans
From the pains Democrats take to out-argue and/or to compromise with the fringe minority party called the Republicans you'd think no other course of action was available, specifically you'd have to assume that the filibuster -- the power of senators representing 11 percent of us to block all work by the House and Senate -- is written in stone. In reality, 51 senators could eliminate the filibuster or change the number of votes
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 9, 2015 Columbus Lives
Columbus was not a particularly evil person. He was a murderer, a robber, an enslaver, and a torturer, whose crimes led to possibly the most massive conglomeration of crimes and horrific accidents on record. But Columbus was a product of his time, a time that has not exactly ended.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 5, 2017 You Cannot Begin a Crime in Good Faith
When Ken Burns begins a documentary on the American war on Vietnam by calling it a war begun in good faith we should be able to recognize a lie and an impossibility. We don't imagine rapes begun in good faith, slavery begun in good faith, child abuse begun in good faith. If someone tells you a war was begun in good faith, make a good faith effort to destroy your television.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 29, 2016 The Problem with Chanting "USA"
These were instructions passed around during the last night of the Wells Fargo Arena Anti-Russia Don't-Say-TPP Call-It- Debt-Free- College-Not- Free-College Democratic Party Extravaganza. Noise Makers were deployed. Lights could be switched off on people as needed. Delegates were prevented from walking out. And chants like "Black Lives Matter" and "Love Is Love" were joined in by the corporatists.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 17, 2023 Cruelty to Immigrants Is Cruelty to Children
Some books shouldn't have to exist, but you're glad they do. This one describes a whole field of work "" using art-creation to help kids in Arizona and Southern California deal with trauma created by anti-immigrant policies and attitudes "" which shouldn't have to exist, but you're glad it does. The book is called Drawing Deportation: Art and Resistance Among Immigrant Children by Sylvia Rodriguez Vega.
SHARE Thursday, August 5, 2021 Hiroshima Is A Lie
The myths that make up most of what most people think they know about WWII don't resemble the reality, but do endanger our real world.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 16, 2016 War Is Never Just: The End of "Just War" Theory
While there are not enough Just War theorists to launch a war without lots of help from unjust war advocates, elements of Just War theory are found in the thinking of just about every war supporter.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 28, 2020 The Russian Menace and the Dangers of Believing the New York Times
The New York Times claims that Russia offered to pay Afghans to kill U.S. (and allied) troops. It does not claim that any payments were made. It does not claim that any troops were killed. It does not claim that any impact was had on anything. It does not name its sources. It does not offer any evidence other than the supposed assertions of nameless government officials. It does not offer any justification for not naming them.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 26, 2011 The Occupied Turn Occupiers
What could make change possible is the process of reversal now underway through which the occupied are becoming the occupiers.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 10, 2019 The Obama Wars
By "the Obama wars" I don't mean some overgrown infants on television screaming racist insults or pretending that opposing racism requires cheering for Obama.
SHARE Sunday, November 13, 2005 Bonifaz: A Candidate for the Rest of Us
John Bonifaz is seriously considering running for election next year as Massachusetts Secretary of State, or more properly, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A victory for him would be a victory of national importance for election reform and voting rights.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 27, 2017 Why and How to Bring Environmental and Peace Movements Together
If war were moral, legal, defensive, beneficial to the spread of freedom, and inexpensive, we would be obliged to make abolishing it our top priority solely because of the destruction that war and preparations for war do as the leading polluters of our natural environment.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 14, 2011 Murdoch Has Blood on His Hands
Nailing Rupert Murdoch for his employees' phone tapping or bribery would be a little like bringing down Al Capone for tax fraud, or George W. Bush for torture. I'd be glad to see it happen but there'd still be something perverse about it.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 10, 2017 The Conference to Save the Environment
To my knowledge, and I very, very much hope I am wrong, this upcoming conference will be the very first environmental conference in the United States to take on the single gravest threat to the world's natural environment and to the natural environment right here within the United States. May many more conferences and actions follow!
SHARE Monday, July 8, 2019 Official Secrets: Best Movie So Far This Year
The true story of British whistleblower Katharine Gun is public. The new movie dramatizing that story, with Keira Knightley in the starring role is called a thriller. And that it is.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 24, 2015 Pope Tells World's Top Arms Dealers to End Arms Trade
I couldn't sit through the Pope's slow and plodding and polite speech to Congress, waiting for him to say something against the primary thing that body does and spends our money on. But finally he got there:
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 3, 2019 Patriotism Is Too Small For My Family
Ending bigotry has gone mainstream among the enlightened people of the developed world.
Did you spot the acceptable bigotry in that sentence?
SHARE Sunday, December 1, 2019 Ukrainegate's Failures
The weaknesses of Ukrainegate are on display in a new book by Neal Katyal ("with Sam Koppelman") making the case for Ukrainegate, but titled "Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump."
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 25, 2020 Bernie Finally Puts a Number on Cutting Military Spending
Bernie Sanders' campaign has published a fact sheet on how everything he proposes can be paid for. On that fact sheet we find this line in a list of items that collectively will pay for a Green New Deal: . . .
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 11, 2010 Good News: Will We Hear It?
Whenever I write about U.S. politics, people ask me "Don't you have any good news?" (Unless the Republicans are in power, in which case people ask me "Who are you going to vote for?") But I do have good news, boatloads of good news, if Americans want to hear it.
SHARE Tuesday, September 3, 2019 Nonviolence Denial Is As Dangerous As Climate Denial
Persistent willful ignorance of necessary knowledge can be deadly. This is true of denial of climate collapse. It is also true of denial of the tools and power of nonviolent action. As evidence and knowledge pile up in each case, denial of the facts looks more and more intentional, reckless, and malevolent, or intentionally, recklessly, and malevolently manufactured by propagandists.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 7, 2017 Thousands in U.S. send messages of friendship to Russians
As of this writing, 7,269 people in the United States, and rising steadily, have posted messages of friendship to the people of Russia. They can be read, and more can be added at RootsAction.org.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 11, 2018 How Do Weapons Makers Sleep at Night?
A new report by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies "focuses on the five largest U.S. arms manufacturers -- Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics -- and their dealings with three repressive nations: Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt."
(13 comments) SHARE Friday, January 2, 2009 Ruth Marcus Supports Torture
Washington Post editorial writer Ruth Marcus has joined the side of the executioners and provided a clear example of how that is respectably done in our time and place. But, "it is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners."
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 7, 2020 Charlottesville City Council Passes Resolution Against War on Iran
Charlottesville Virginia's City Council voted Monday evening to adopt a resolution opposing war on Iran and urging passage by Congress of Senator Tim Kaine's privileged resolution.
SHARE Monday, June 3, 2019 Charlottesville Divests from Weapons and Fossil Fuels
On the evening of June 3, 2019, the City Council of Charlottesville, Va., voted to divest the funds in its operating budget from weapons dealers and fossil fuel producers. Here's the resolution as passed by the City Council: PDF. The city has also committed to taking the same step with its retirement fund by this coming autumn.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 2, 2008 Will Police from Brattleboro, Vt., Arrest Bush and Cheney?
When citizens and voters go to the town meeting and primaries in Brattleboro, Vermont, on Tuesday, there will be a question on the back of all ballots, and a circle to mark Yes and one to mark No:
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 17, 2016 Worst Human Being Alive: Tony Blair?
I realize that, living here in the United States, the nation doing the most in the world to create wars, proliferate nukes, and destroy the habitability of the earth's climate, I really have a duty to pick someone in the United States as the worst individual human being alive. But...
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 18, 2011 Support Killing People Or Lose Your Job
PBS (the P stands for "Pure" I think) is concerned that if the U.S. government stops funding the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. economy will crash:
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, March 5, 2012 Murder Is Legal, Says Eric Holder
Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday explained why it's legal to murder people -- not to execute prisoners convicted of capital crimes, not to shoot someone in self-defense, not to fight on a battlefield in a war that is somehow legalized, but to target and kill an individual sitting on his sofa, with no charges, no arrest, no trial, no approval from a court, no approval from a legislature, no approval from we the people.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 19, 2016 The African American History Missing from the Smithsonian
The new corporate-funded African-American History museum in Washington, D.C., built on the former site of Camp Democracy and all sorts of protests and festivals, is getting a great deal of purely positive press before its doors have opened.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 1, 2017 Oh Canada, Why Can't You Shelter War Resisters?
Deb Ellis' and Dennis Mueller's film Peace Has No Borders tells the story of U.S. war resisters in Canada in opposition to the 2003-present war on Iraq, and the efforts of the War Resisters Support Campaign to win them the right not to be deported.
SHARE Thursday, June 8, 2023 Austrian Censorship of Peace Conference Is An Outrage
Forty-eight hours before a global peace conference in Vienna, Austria, was to begin, the venue host abruptly cancelled. Peace, it seems, cannot be discussed, especially peace in Ukraine.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 18, 2011 They Only Lock Up Heroes in Quantico
If Bradley Manning turns out to be the hero he appears to be, he will not be the first "detained" at Quantico.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 14, 2011 Rescind Obama's "Transparency Award" Now!
Tell Project on Government Oversight (POGO), OMB Watch, the National Security Archive, Open the Government.Org, and the Reporters Committee to publicly take back their Transparency Award to President Obama.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 18, 2012 Why Students Are Hunger Striking in Virginia
Twelve students at the University of Virginia on Saturday began a hunger strike for a living wage policy for university employees.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, May 25, 2015 Is Al Jazeera Trying to Be CNN or Fox?
Some weeks back I got a call from Al Jazeera wanting me to be on a show, but insisting that I couldn't do it from a local studio via satellite or from my computer via Skype. No, I would have to fly to New York and back, and they would pay for the flight ...
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, July 27, 2007 Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream
But what really struck me was the BBC story aired on July 23rd documenting President George W. Bush's grandfather's involvement in a 1933 plot to overthrow the U.S. government and install a fascist dictatorship. I knew the story, but had not considered the possibility that the grandson was trying to accomplish what his grandfather had failed to achieve.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 15, 2019 Courage, People! Show Some Misneach!
Misneach (mish-nyuhkh) is an Irish word meaning something like bravery, courage, spirit.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 23, 2010 Powerful Video Response to SCOTUS Inc
Jamin Raskin, professor of constitutional law and the First Amendment at American University, has spoken out powerfully on behalf of a new campaign at FreeSpeechForPeople.org that aims to undo the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to remove limitations on corporations' election spending.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 15, 2017 How War Pollutes the Potomac River
The Pentagon's impact on the river on whose bank it sits is not simply the diffuse impact of global warming and rising oceans contributed to by the U.S. military's massive oil consumption. The U.S. military also directly poisons the Potomac River in more ways than almost anyone would imagine.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 19, 2011 Louder Than Words
The President will present more words in a speech today, as his wars rage on. Will you join us in preparing to insist on something louder than words?
SHARE Friday, July 7, 2023 A World for Eight-Spot Butterflies
What most excites me about Julian Aguon's book No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies is that (1) there is very little indication in the cover, the blurbs, the preface, the table of contents, etc., that it opposes war, militarism, or empire, (2) but it does, and (3) people are reading it.
SHARE Saturday, February 10, 2007 Sex and Torture in America
How does sex differ from torture? The one is good and the other bad, might be your immediate reply. But were I to describe an act of torture, this would be taken as a serious article. Were I to describe an act of sex, then political publications wouldn't publish it, spam filters wouldn't allow you to receive it, and if you did receive it, you might turn away.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, December 28, 2007 Kucinich Wins Virginia Democratic Party Poll
Congressman Dennis Kucinich has won the Virginia Democratic Party's online presidential primary straw poll. Candidates in the poll included the six Democrats who have qualified to appear on the primary ballot in Virginia on February 12.
(53 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 30, 2016 Jill Stein's Platform More Viable Than Bernie's
I asked Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein about her platform this week and came away believing it had a better chance of winning than Bernie Sanders'. I know that platforms don't run, people do, and they do so within a two-party dominated system. But this already crazy presidential election could turn into a crazier five-way race. And, even if it doesn't, or if it does but still nobody ever learns that Jill Stein..
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, November 29, 2010 Stop These Wars Or We'll Fill Your Jails
Here's an easy question: would you rather go to jail for a few hours with a bunch of friends or die?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, December 18, 2017 The Even More Dangerous Case of Donald Trump
Twenty-Seven psychiatrists and mental health experts have produced a book called The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, which I think, despite stating that the fate of the world is in the hands of an evil madman, understates the danger.
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Gallup: U.S. Population Highly Militaristic
In early 2014 there were unusual news stories about Gallup's end-of-2013 polling because after polling in 65 countries with the question "Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?" the overwhelming winner had been the United States of America.
Had Gallup then conducted a poll on whether Gallup would ever ask that question again, I'm willing to bet large numbers would have said no.
(11 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 27, 2009 The Emperor's Seven Signing Statements
Lawless detention is the least of it. State secrets and warrantless spying scrape the surface. Drone attacks and ongoing torture begin to touch it.
SHARE Friday, March 31, 2023 Goodbye, Doctrine of Discovery
We should all applaud the Vatican, after almost six centuries, repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery.
SHARE Tuesday, January 14, 2020 Why We Need Decolonization in 2020
South Korea cannot choose to make peace with North Korea without the consent of a foreign power that keeps thirty thousand troops in South Korea, makes South Korea pay much of the cost of housing them, commands the South Korean military in war, holds veto power at the United Nations, and is not accountable to the International Criminal Court or the International Court of Justice.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 16, 2018 Trump Parade Canceled -- Peace Parade Goes Forward
A few days after an over-hyped white supremacist rally in Washington, D.C., was massively outnumbered by people opposed to racism, and one day after 187 organizations (more than that now) publicly committed to turning out people to counter Donald Trump's planned weapons parade with a parade for peace in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, and less than a day after the U.S. military said the weapons parade...
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, May 29, 2015 Where Would Jesus Live?
If Jesus lived in Galilee in recent decades he would live in a world alive with Palestinian traditions clinging to a long-rooted history but struggling through the aftermath of the never-ended ethnic-cleansing operation that spiked in 1948.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 10, 2016 Snowden: Best Film of the Year
Snowden is the most entertaining, informing, and important film you are likely to see this year.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 11, 2019 For the First Time in My Life I'm Against Impeaching the President
I had hoped to make the above statement after electing a president whom I did not consider a vile mass-murderous warmongering climate-destroying threat to humanity. I'm saying it early. I'm saying it while Trump is president.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 4, 2014 Philippines: U.S. Troops, Go Home!
We had a two day protest, the first was a march near the Presidential Palace where we burned a giant effigy of Obama on a chariot and Aquino as his running dog.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, December 31, 2007 Death By Election
There must be a Star Trek episode (if there's not, there should be) in which all the best minds in the leftist political opposition on some planet are diverted into an obsession with a virtual reality game, leaving all the right-wingers free to drive the planet into inevitable war and destruction.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 19, 2011 TV, Newspapers, Congress Apologize for Claiming War Not About Oil
In the wake of the latest revelations of what everyone always knew, the largest press conference in the history of the United States has been planned for tomorrow in the Nationals Park baseball stadium in Washington, D.C
SHARE Sunday, June 16, 2019 War on Iran Stupidest Idea Yet Recorded in a Human Brain
Scientists not employed by ExxonMobil or named Neil DeGrasse Tyson have reached a universal consensus. Wanting the United States to attack Iran is the single stupidest idea yet recorded in a human brain. In the words of one, "It isn't even close."
SHARE Monday, September 14, 2009 Army's Shopping Mall Death Hall Closed
The Army Experience Center, an amusement hall built in a Philadelphia area shopping mall to make killing and dying look like fun to kids, has been the focus of repeated protests and criticism. This past weekend hundreds again protested at the AEC, and police arrested six protesters and one journalist. The journalist was not with the protesters, and was picked out of a crowd, apparently because of her professional camera.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 12, 2010 Obama Scraps Iraq Withdrawal
So, we elected a president who promised a withdrawal from Iraq that he, or the generals who tell him what to do, is now further delaying. And, of course, the timetable he's now delaying was already a far cry from what he had promised as a candidate.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 17, 2016 Michael Flynn Should Remember Truths He Blurted Out Last Year
Michael Flynn, expected to advise Donald Trump on counterproductive killing operations misleading labeled "national security," is generally depicted as a lawless torturer and assassin. But, whether for partisan reasons or otherwise, he's a lawless torturer and assassin who has blurted out some truths he shouldn't be allowed to forget.
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 28, 2020 Even the Most Progressive U.S. Foreign Policy Blames Foreigners
When it comes to foreign policy, it ought to go without saying that Trump, Biden, and Buttigieg are walking catastrophes. A bit of research suggests that Elizabeth Warren is pretty much a true believer in slightly modified catastrophe. But what about Bernie Sanders?
SHARE Wednesday, November 29, 2017 Trump in Exile
SHIP'S LOG, February 15, 2018 -- How the Earthlings have survived is a mystery. Ever since the United States impeached and removed Donald Trump for accidentally live-streaming himself sexually assaulting a tourist (or was it really for refusing to bomb Moscow? unclear) events have spiraled out of control.
(11 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 17, 2008 How History Will View Bush
As George Bush prepares to leave office, he and his aides are trying desperately to rewrite history, especially on Iraq.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 13, 2019 Smedley Butler's Speech Against War in Charlottesville in 1937
I didn't know until recently that Smedley Butler had ever been to my town. Then I heard that he'd spoken at the University of Virginia here in Charlottesville in 1937. The University of Virginia had the speech tucked away in its stacks and was kind enough to dig it out. It's pasted below.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 1, 2011 Cheney's Kettle Logic
On "Morning Joe" on MSNBC on Thursday, the former Vice President claimed that the intelligence used to invade Iraq had been sound and accurate; the faulty intelligence was all Bill Clinton's fault; the invasion didn't do any damage but rather it was the Iraqis who damaged Iraq; and any invasion causes horrific things to happen, that just comes with the territory.
SHARE Sunday, July 14, 2019 Military Bill Amended for the Better: This Pig Has Really, Really Good Lipstick
The latest U.S. House of Representatives version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which is beyond global in scope and not the least bit defensive, offended Donald Trump's desire for limitless power and spending in dozens of ways detailed by the people he employs to write things longer than tweets and that was before it was amended. And the amendments are shockingly good.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, June 4, 2018 Tangier Island Is The Earth
It's nice to look down on the poor foolish residents of Tangier Island, a little speck of land sinking into the Chesapeake Bay. Some 87% of the residents who voted in 2016, voted for Trump. The Mayor of Tangier says that being mayor is only his second job; his first is killing some of what remain of the crabs in the Bay. Residents imagine that the U.S. government will save their island from going under by building a wall.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 2, 2020 The Beginning of the End
The Beginning or the End may have been the beginning of the end.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 7, 2018 Why and Why Not to Oppose a Trumparade
People have a wide range of reasons for opposing a military Trumparade through Washington. Here are nearly 20,000 people who say:
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 23, 2017 The Middle East for Dummies
The first point I'd like to touch on is the idea that the Middle East is a culturally violent place that can be made less violent by bombing it. The first problem with this is that bombing places makes them more violent, not less. Nobody is shocked or awed into nonviolence, not 14 years ago and not for the past century. The second problem is ...t
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 27, 2017 A Peace Treaty with North Korea -- and you can sign it!
Alarmed by the threat of a nuclear war between the U.S. and North Korea, concerned U.S. peace groups have come together to send an open message to Washington and Pyongyang.
SHARE Friday, October 11, 2019 The Nobel Committee Is Doing Better
The committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize was right not to give the prize to Greta Thunberg, who deserves the highest prizes available, but not one created to fund the work of abolishing war and militaries. That cause ought to be central to the work of protecting the climate, but it is not. The question of why no young person working to abolish war is given access to television networks ought to be raised.
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 16, 2017 Why You Should Visit Russia
Just back from a week in Moscow, I feel obliged to point out a few things about it.
(13 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 7, 2009 Unlawful Assembly
As the 111th Congress was being sworn in on Tuesday, a seemingly endless line of figures dressed all in black with stark white masks slowly marched single-file around Capitol Hill.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 28, 2017 FAILED: Foreign Policy as We Know It
The Stop the War Coalition has just published a short summary of what's wrong with foreign policy, going through a partial list of current wars one by one. Of course this is a British organization with a British perspective, but it's the closest thing to what a well-funded U.S. anti-war organization might produce, and it ought to be considered by people everywhere, as it impacts us all.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 9, 2011 Uranium Safe to Eat With a Spoon!
Carefully ignoring Fukushima, Los Alamos, Vermont, and Nebraska, a comforting new announcement informs us that "nuclear energy is safe."
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 1, 2017 Has Van Jones Lost His Mind, Or Are Sane People Missing the Point?
A rational and moral person might think of the recent U.S. raid in Yemen this way. Here's one small incident out of a war consisting primarily of a massive bombing campaign that has slaughtered innocents by the thousands and is threatening to lead to the starvation of hundreds of thousands. In this one incident some 30 people were murdered, some 10 of them women and children, one of them the 8-year-old sister of ...
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, June 2, 2017 A Portrait of the CIA in Prison
John Kiriakou's Doing Time Like a Spy: How the CIA Taught Me to Survive and Thrive in Prison paints a disturbing portrait of a U.S. prison in which Kiriakou spent time as retribution for having admitted that the CIA used torture. His ongoing whistleblowing on the state of U.S. prisons, as well as on the ways in which the U.S. government has gone after him, is as valuable as his opposition to CIA torture.
SHARE Monday, June 12, 2023 Can You See War?
The buzzing noise of a drone never ceases. A missile screaming into your house is hard to miss. Gun fire. The door kicked in. These are not subtle gestures. Yet Norman Solomon's new book is called War Made Invisible. What?
SHARE Thursday, August 24, 2017 No War 2017: War and the Environment
Just following the International Day of Peace, and in the tradition of No War 2016: Real Security Without Terrorism, and the best speech any U.S. president ever gave, this year's conference will focus on activism, including activist planning workshops, addressing how the antiwar and environmental movements can work together.
SHARE Sunday, January 30, 2011 60 Minutes: Putting the BS in CBS
The value of the "60 Minutes" video is in its potential to inform us about CBS and the corporate media in the United States, of which it is a typical or even above average example.
SHARE Monday, September 9, 2019 Limerick at Peace
Green Ireland has a peaceful blue sky.
Shannon Airport's full of war planes; Here's why.
When Emperor Trump
Tells Ireland to Jump
Ireland bows down and asks him "How high?"
SHARE Tuesday, September 6, 2016 Message to Germans Marching With Russian Orchestra
I was very pleased to learn from Wolfgang Lieberknecht that the people of your two towns in central Germany, Treffurt and Wanfried, will be marching together this week with an orchestra from Russia and a message of friendship in opposition to the new Cold War.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, December 2, 2019 It's time for Virginia to end the death penalty
The death penalty's slow death is accelerating. At least 140 nations no longer use it. No nation in Europe uses the death penalty. No nation in the Western Hemisphere uses it, except the United States.
(9 comments) SHARE Monday, May 18, 2009 Disbarring 12 Torture Lawyers
Broad Coalition Of Groups Files Disciplinary Complaints Against Twelve Bush Administration Lawyers Who Advocated Torture Of Detainees
(13 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 17, 2019 Is Tulsi Gabbard Qualified?
I want Tulsi Gabbard in the Democratic Presidential debates because she speaks out against wars. She raises the topic unasked. She wants various wars ended or not launched. She wants impeachment made automatic for presidents who launch wars. What's not to love?
SHARE Friday, September 20, 2019 New Study Documents Depleted Uranium Impacts on Children in Iraq
In the years following 2003, the U.S. military dotted Iraq with over 500 military bases, many of them close to Iraqi cities. These cities suffered the impacts of bombs, bullets, chemical and other weapons, but also the environmental damage of open burn pits on U.S. bases, abandoned tanks and trucks, and the storage of weapons on U.S. bases, including depleted uranium weapons.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 12, 2005 Note to Randi Rhodes
Don't you realize that people won't vote the Dems a majority BEFORE the Dems stand for something?
SHARE Sunday, July 28, 2019 Abolish Terrorist Agencies
Every government on earth, beginning with the United States, should shut down and be done with secret agencies, spy agencies, agencies used for murder, torture, bribery, election-manipulation, and coups.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 19, 2013 10 Problems with the Latest Excuse for War
If you own a television or read a newspaper you've probably heard that we need another war because the Syrian government used chemical weapons.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 14, 2014 Pranking the CIA: The New Get Rich Quick Story
The Risen media blitz this week accompanies the publication of his new book, Pay Any Price. Risen clearly will not back down. This time he's made his dumbest-thing-the-CIA-did-lately story the second chapter rather than the last, and even the New York Times has already mentioned it. We're talking about a "torture works," "Iraq has WMDs," "let's all stare at goats" level of dumbness here.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 12, 2018 Latin America's Second World War
Mary Jo McConahay's The Tango War is an engaging, extensive, well-researched, well-written account of a topic that still manages to offend me.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 21, 2009 Your Town Can Demand Justice More Loudly Than You
Most city council members take oaths to defend the Constitution. The Constitution makes the rights and standards in its amendments and in international treaties the supreme law of the land. Our nation has a rich tradition of local governments lobbying state and national governments through the passage of resolutions. Under Clause 3, Rule XII, Section 819, of the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives local governments m
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 24, 2019 Dear World, Here's How to Close Your U.S. Military Bases
If you live among the Other 96% that portion of humanity that the U.S. government does not claim to represent, but where the U.S. military maintains some 1,000 major military bases, here are some helpful tips and past examples of success.
SHARE Wednesday, September 13, 2023 Ukraine Solidarity Network's Unwar
Since the day Russia dramatically escalated the war in Ukraine there have been odd conversational confusions. Two people who both claim to oppose the war discover that they oppose opposite sides of the war. Or they discover that one of them opposes both sides of the war (true story, it actually exists, I'm one of them) while the other believes that only Russia is waging war at all, while Ukraine is waging something else.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 28, 2009 Healthcare Hoax from Hell
An amendment allowing states to create state-level single-payer healthcare has been stripped out of the House healthcare bill, after having passed in committee back in July by a vote of 27 to 19.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 15, 2011 Congress Members Sue Obama to End War
On Wednesday in federal court, 10 members of the U.S. Congress sued President Obama in an attempt to end U.S. involvement in a war in Libya.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 23, 2017 U.S. Human Rights Groups Recommend Bombing Victims Move Underground, Develop Militias
The International Committee of the Red Cross and InterAction (a coalition of U.S. human rights groups) have published a report on how to protect civilians when waging war on cities. They seek to catalog the "humanitarian challenges specific to urban warfare."
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 23, 2018 There Is No Good Kind of Nationalism
Trump is for nationalism. So the "Resistance" is predictably for . . . wait for it . . . the right kind of nationalism -- or nationalism worn properly, as The Week advises. The problem isn't nationalism, The Hill informs us, it's phony nationalism and spurious nationalism, or as the Washington Post explains along with CNN, the problem is actually white nationalism.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 21, 2009 Propelling Prisoners' Heads into Concrete Walls
SUMMARY OF PRELIMINARY MEMORANDUM OF THE JUSTICE ROBERT H. JACKSON CONFERENCE ON FEDERAL PROSECUTION OF WAR CRIMINALS
SHARE Thursday, October 3, 2019 U.S. Out of Italy
Italy Should Make Friends with the U.S. Public and the World By Kicking Out the U.S. Military
(12 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 3, 2014 Atheists Caught on Film
The film, The Unbelievers, now playing in theaters, documents a world tour of speaking events by a pair of scientists opposed to theism: biologist Richard Dawkins and physicist Lawrence Krauss.
SHARE Sunday, February 23, 2020 Nonviolent Action for Peace
George Lakey's new book is called How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning. On its cover is a drawing of a hand holding up two fingers in what is more often considered a peace sign than a victory sign, but I suppose it is meant as both.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, March 2, 2015 Admit that torture does not work
The popularity and acceptability of torture have soared in the United States and around the world. This is not simply because the United States has tortured. The U.S. government, many of its policies, its wars, and key torture supporters have not seen similar boosts in popularity.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, January 9, 2009 Goodbye to Bush in Three Minutes
Cindy Sheehan asked if I could record a 3-minute goodbye message to Bush and Cheney for her radio show, so I wrote down and read the following:
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, October 21, 2016 Halloween Is Coming, Vladimir Putin Isn't
There are Putin Halloween masks for sale in U.S. stores. Time magazine has Putin on the cover accusing him of trying to damage U.S. elections. A Google search for "Hitler Putin" brings back 11 million results. This demonization of a foreign leader should frighten us more than that leader himself.
SHARE Saturday, November 11, 2023 A Global Monroe Doctrine Needs a Global Armistice
Part of what's needed to undo the Monroe Doctrine, the other war doctrines built on it, and the wars that never end can be found in what the people of Latin America are doing.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 29, 2015 A Preview of Coming Wars: Do Black Lives Matter in Africa?
Reading Nick Turse's new book, Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, raises the question of whether black lives in Africa matter to the U.S. military any more than black lives in the United States matter to the police lately trained and armed by that military.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 27, 2009 Fox Is News, Bad News
It matters because there is a more destructive force in our communications system than a transparently rightwing buffoons gallery. That destructive force is the persistent myth of "objective" "viewpoint-free" reporting.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 6, 2018 Celebrate Mass Slaughter on Patriot Day!
I went in search of anything the United States was number 1 in that it shouldn't be ashamed of, and came up empty. But I did find that the United States is number 1 in believing it is number 1. So, that's something.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, May 12, 2017 The U.S. Behavior That Concerns Russia
I attended a meeting in Moscow on Friday with Vladimir Kozin, longtime member of Russia's foreign service, advisor to the government, author, and advocate for arms reduction. He handed out the list of 16 unresolved problems above. While he noted that the United States funds NGOs in Russia, as well as Ukraine, to influence elections, and described that as a reality in contrast to U.S. stories about Russia.
SHARE Friday, October 7, 2022 2022: Nobel Committee Gets Peace Prize Wrong Yet Again
The fact that all sides of all wars have always failed and always will fail to engage in humane operations is possibly why Alfred Nobel set up a prize to advance the abolition of war.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 27, 2008 Yes We Can UnPardon War Criminals
On his third day in office President Grant revoked two pardons that had been granted by President Andrew Johnson. President Nixon also undid a pardon that had been granted by President Lyndon Johnson.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 30, 2011 Prediction: 20 Years of War in Libya
If, however, NATO and the opposition were to kill Gadaffi, he said, the fighting could go on for more than 20 years.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 14, 2008 Halliburton Gang Rape Victim Finds No Justice
What does one say to a young woman gang raped by men paid by us to work for a company from which our vice president profits, men who have yet to be charged with any crime, a company yet to make amends in any way, and a presidential administration effectively granted immunity by our representatives in Congress?
SHARE Saturday, September 23, 2017 Welcome to No War 2017: War and the Environment
Welcome to No War 2017: War and the Environment. Thank you all for being here. I'm David Swanson. I'm going to speak briefly and introduce Tim DeChristopher and Jill Stein to also speak briefly. We hope to also have time for some questions as we hope to have in every part of this conference.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 3, 2017 What We're Supposed to Think
We're supposed to think that the United States is threatened for no reason by irrational subhuman monsters arising out of the less important bits of the earth found beyond U.S. borders.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, September 22, 2008 "No Blank Check" or "No %$#!*@ Check"
The last time the Democrats all started bleating "No blank check - No blank check" it meant only one thing. They were signing a check and scribbling a bunch of nonsense in the memo line.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 11, 2012 Judge Deliberates on Whether to Save Earth's Atmosphere
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Wilkins heard the arguments on Friday in Washington, D.C., and is deliberating now on the question of whether young people can sue to compel their government to take serious measures to stop global warming.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 13, 2010 Perriello-Hurt Debate Pathetic
The only debate thus far between the Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress from Virginia's Fifth District was held Wednesday evening.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 23, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Francis Boyle on How to Impeach Trump
Francis Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. Professor Boyle has served as counsel to Bosnia and Herzegovina and to the Provisional Government of the Palestinian Authority. He has represented the Blackfoot Nation, the Nation of Hawaii, and the Lakota Nation. He drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, August 7, 2017 Foreigners Are Crazy
Pew did a poll in 38 countries asking about various dangers and threats.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, May 7, 2010 Apocalypse Never: Read This Book or Die
Daley has a unique argument for the moral necessity of sharing his goal and promoting either his book or others like it: our only alternative is the annihilation of all life on earth.
(17 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 20, 2016 Acting on Bill Ayers' Radical Manifesto
Bill Ayers' short new book, Demand the Impossible: A Radical Manifesto, is different from the typical liberal view of a better world in two ways. First, its goals are a bit grander, more inspiring. Second, it adds as the first and most important goal one that others don't include at all.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 18, 2023 There Is No Nuclear Option
Think about somebody you love. Are you doing it? Now think about them on fire, and you're holding a bucket of water. Your course of action is easy and obvious.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 24, 2017 Be Glad the White House Comment Line Is Closed
The White House comment phone line directs people to kindly go away and think about what losers they are. Oops, sorry, I mean it directs people not to leave any comments. Instead it says to use a White House web form or to send a message through a White House Facebook account (which has no messaging capability). I'm not inclined to use the web form, because I doubt anyone reads it and I'd rather not be added to an email list.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 4, 2019 The Myths, the Silence, and the Propaganda That Keep Nuclear Weapons in Existence
This week, 74 years ago, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were each hit with a single nuclear bomb that had the power of a third to a half of what NPR calls a low-yield or "usable" weapon. By NPR I mean both the Nuclear Posture Review and National Public Radio, both the U.S. government and what many people dangerously think of as a free press.
SHARE Friday, December 28, 2007 2007: The Year in Evidence
The past year has seen the public exposure of enough evidence of old, ongoing, and new crimes, abuses of power, and impeachable offenses by George Bush and Dick Cheney that in any remotely representative democracy, these two thugs would be out of office and behind bars. The chief reason this does not shock us is that the same could be said, and was said, of each of the previous six years.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 14, 2017 Western Refugee Policies Are One Endless Evian Conference
Evian is not just a bottled water company. And the town of Évian-les-Baines in France on the south shore of Lake Geneva is not just a location for luxury hotels. It's also the location where, in July 1938, the first international effort was ever made (or feigned) to alleviate a refugee crisis.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 7, 2018 What Took Down ACORN May Take Down the Rest of Us
In Seymour Hersh's new account of his career, Reporter: A Memoir, he recalls that Martin Luther King Jr. told him upon the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that he planned to register 900,000 Negroes to vote. King would go on to oppose war and organize poor people across racial lines before being killed.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 7, 2010 Ending War Funding Before It Ends Us
Wars have the support of most Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, and of the Democratic Leadership, but not of most of the Democrats.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 30, 2012 Chris Hayes, Heroes, and Morons
Chris Hayes was driving me crazy, because I was beginning to think I'd need to start watching television. Luckily I've been saved from that fate, it seems. Hayes' comments on MSNBC, for which he has now absurdly apologized, were the type of basic honesty -- or, better, truth telling as revolutionary act -- that was tempting me.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 11, 2019 U.S. House of Representatives Creates Requirement That There Be Some Basis for Any Foreign Bases
By a vote of 219 to 210, at 2:31 p.m. on Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment introduced by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar requiring that the U.S. military provide Congress with the cost and the supposed national security benefits of every foreign military base or foreign military operation.
SHARE Friday, March 24, 2023 How to Fabricate an Atrocity
Once you've followed all the proper steps and fabricated a beautiful atrocity or collection of atrocities, you'll find that only those media outlets and populations that want to believe your ludicrous tales will do so.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, October 13, 2008 New Book: The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. Bush
Feral House offers this important and urgent publication of Dennis Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment this election season in two formats: an offset-printed paperback book available for the cost of $12 and a free downloadable PDF available below.
SHARE Thursday, May 25, 2023 Dear Ukraine-Had-No-Choice Friends
Ukraine and Russia both will have to admit wrongdoing and compromise if the war is to end. Even if they want to go on entertaining a delusion of blamelessness, they will have to do this. They will have to allow the people of Crimea and Donbas to decide their own fate. And then Ukraine and NATO and Raytheon could declare a victory for democracy with some actual basis for doing so.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 23, 2018 Trumparade of 2018 Stupidest Idea Since Philadelphia Liberty Loan Parade of 1918
It's hard not to focus on the fact that Trump has picked the 100th anniversary of the first Armistice Day celebration for his weaponry parade (more on that below). But there was another parade a month and a half before the armistice that cries out for comparison because of its remarkable stupidity. I'm thinking of the Liberty Loan Parade in Philadelphia.
SHARE Saturday, September 24, 2022 Get Mad About Nuclear Madness
Remarks in Seattle on September 24, 2022: I am so sick and tired of wars. I'm ready for peace. What about you?
SHARE Monday, June 26, 2017 U.S. Conference of Mayors Opposes Military-Heavy Trump Budget
The U.S. Conference of Mayors on Monday unanimously passed three resolutions opposing the military-heavy Trump budget proposal, urging Congress to move funding out of the military and into human and environmental needs rather than the reverse.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 5, 2016 U.S. Denies Entry to former British Ambassador Craig Murray
The U.S. government, for no stated reason, and after having approved his entry in the past, has denied Craig Murray the usual approval to enter the United States without a visa that is given to UK citizens. Craig Murray was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, September 21, 2009 Dallas Does Progressivism
This past Saturday, I joined in a protest at a former president's house, took part in a four-hour progressive politics forum in an enormous theater packed with an enthusiastic crowd, and spoke at a fundraiser for GI resistance in a giant gay cathedral, all in the heart of the hinterlands: Dallas, Texas.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, September 17, 2012 Nuclear Roulette
After the mining, processing, and shipping of uranium, and the plant construction, maintenance, and deconstruction, a nuclear plant only produces about as much energy as went into it.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 20, 2018 Senator Tim Kaine's Brief Run-In With the Law
Today, April 20, 2018, Senator Tim Kaine told an audience at the U of Virginia that missiles into Syria were illegal because not authorized by Congress, leaving everyone to imagine Congress could have made such a thing legal.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 3, 2012 Catching Rachel Maddow's Drift
People who know better gave Rachel Maddow's new book unqualified praise in blurbs on the dust jacket. Maybe they see more good than bad in the book, which is called "Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power." That's a fair assessment.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 27, 2018 Isolationism or Imperialism: You Really Can't Imagine a Third Possibility?
"I'm against war but we can't be simplistic about it and just end one of them willy-nilly, abandoning our allies." This is the type of language used to support imperialism in the great debate between isolationism and imperialism, a debate wholly dependent on the ridiculous pretense that these two choices constitute the full range of possible human behaviors.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 27, 2011 A 51St State For Armed Robotic Drones
Weaponized UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), also known as drones, have their own caucus in Congress, and the Pentagon's plan is to give them their own state as well.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 1, 2015 Canada, Do Not Follow U.S. Into Permawar
Oh Canada, to thine own self be true, not to thine heavily militarized neighbor. Robin Williams called you a nice apartment over a meth lab for a reason, and now you're bringing the drugs upstairs.
SHARE Tuesday, November 5, 2019 President of Mexico Declines Trump's Offer of a War
Andre's Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), the President of Mexico, was not eager to accept Donald Trump's offer to fight a war against drug dealers.
SHARE Sunday, March 8, 2020 When a Weapons Show Is Canceled By Coronavirus
Imagine a weapons show canceled because of coronavirus. It may already have happened. It's certainly imaginable. But now try to imagine a coronavirus show canceled by a bomb threat.
SHARE Wednesday, May 24, 2023 Dear Russia-Had-No-Choice Friends
Here's a terrible "syllogism" from a wonderful person, Ray McGovern, longtime CIA employee, then longtime peace activist, and now year-long contender that Russia had no choice but to attack Ukraine.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 4, 2011 Rebuild the Dream in the Streets
Back around May or June a bunch of us announced plans for this coming Thursday, October 6th, to occupy Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., not for a march or a rally, and not for a day or a weekend, but to create a central space for an ongoing occupation from which we would engage in nonviolent resistance.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 25, 2015 Understanding the Suffering War Brings
Is there any imaginable way in which the most recent 200 million war deaths could have each been just? If 200 million men, women, and children are guilty of something deserving murder, then must we not all be? If even 10 percent of them are, then must we not all be?
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 11, 2018 Dan Crenshaw Sounds Like a Propagandist for Mass Murder
What is more sick about U.S. society?
1) It's totally 100% acceptable to make cruel stupid jokes about people's appearance.
2) There's an exception. You shouldn't do it if the thing you're making fun of relates to their participation in mass murder.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 18, 2012 Will the 2012 Presidential Election Be Stolen?
It matters to me whether our elections are stolen in any number of ways in which they can be stolen, some of which would simply mean Romney robbing Obama, but others of which are related to the barriers facing non-corporate candidates.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 27, 2014 Here Comes Ukrainian Hemp
So the United States wants to buy hemp from the Ukraine. I suppose we should be happy.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 28, 2009 Muchas Gracias Compadres
Spain has begun a criminal investigation into six of Bush and Cheney's torture lawyers, and our own Justice Department has got some 'splaining to do.
SHARE Tuesday, January 7, 2020 Petition Asks U.S. Presidential Candidates for Their Budgets
A petition supported by World BEYOND War, RootsAction.org, and Daily Kos, has thus far gathered over 12,000 signatures from people asking presidential candidates to propose federal budgets.
SHARE Sunday, November 12, 2023 A Restoration of Armistice Day, and a History of the Only Two World Wars We Can Survive
The moment of ending the Great War was supposed to end all war, and it kicked off a world-wide celebration of joy and of the restoration of some semblance of sanity. It became a time of silence, of bell ringing, of remembering, and of dedicating oneself to actually ending all war.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 15, 2017 Top 10 Ways to Stop Trump Nuking Anybody
On Tuesday the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on whether Trump can just up and nuke people or not. The hand-picked witnesses, all former military, all said there was some chance that if Trump ordered a nuking, somebody might refuse to carry out the order.
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 20, 2012 Ending the Mindset That Gets Us into War
That's what we do with wars. We say they're the last resort. We say they're hell. We say they're for the purpose of eliminating themselves: we fight wars for peace. Although we never keep peace for wars. We claim to wage only wars we have been forced into despite all possible effort to find a better way. And then we celebrate the wars.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 13, 2016 What Makes Obama Think His Wars Are Legal?
President Barack Obama's lawyers, working on our dime, have just laid out a 46-page explanation of why current wars are legal. They've done so in response to a lawsuit, which has limited the argument in some significant ways.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 7, 2019 Another Armistice Day With No Trump Weapons Parade
November 11, 2019, is Armistice Day 101 (or 102 if you want to be all mathematically accurate and elitist about it). Anyway, it's been over a century now since World War I was ended at a scheduled moment (11 o'clock on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918).
SHARE Thursday, December 11, 2014 Torture "Architect" Mistaken in Claim Nobody's Punished for Drone Murders
A psychologist who played a key role in a U.S. torture program said on a video yesterday that torture was excusable because blowing up families with a drone is worse (and nobody's punished for that). Well, of course the existence of something worse is no excuse for torture. And he's wrong that no one is punished for drone murders. The protesters are. Latest example: Series: Citizens United (4 Articles, 7028 views), Documentary (29 Articles, 52848 views), Military/Foreign Policy (23 Articles, 55519 views) (View All Series)
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 4, 2011 Osama bin Lynched
I'm going to give this speech tonight to a crowd of drunk young people. If I'm not back by morning, ask around if there have been any "Islamic burials."
SHARE Thursday, July 18, 2019 Mike Gravel Should Be In the Debates
I spoke with Senator Mike Gravel on Thursday and asked him whether it seemed fair to him to be excluded from Democratic Party Presidential Primary debates on the basis of his performance in polls that did not include his name among those whom people could say they supported.
Of course, he said that it did not. But he also raised some additional questions, and told me what he would say if included in a debate.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 19, 2016 U.S. Air Force's Ability to Deliver Death But Not Food Is A Choice
According to news reports, there are areas of Syria where people are literally starving to death, and where the United Nations is attempting to drop food from the air but missing its target so wildly that the food is damaged or simply cannot be found.
SHARE Friday, September 25, 2009 ACORN Took Over IL Repub Party
The ACORN member said, "ACORN has taken over the Republican Party in Illinois. Can I help you?"
SHARE Sunday, January 29, 2023 The Monroe Doctrine Shaped North America
We're often taught that the Monroe Doctrine wasn't acted on until decades after its articulation, or that it wasn't acted on as a license for imperialism until it was altered or reinterpreted by later generations. This is not false, but it is overstated.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, March 1, 2010 The Saddest Story
One of the most unusual books and far-and-away the saddest I have ever read is James Douglass's "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters."
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 23, 2009 Holder Just Made Me a Promise
As Attorney General Eric Holder left an appropriations subcommittee hearing on Thursday I spoke loudly from the third row as he prepared to leave the room:
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 24, 2016 The World Must Support Ireland Against U.S. Wars
Those of us outside Ireland, and in particular those of us in the United States, have a pressing and urgent responsibility to lend all the support we can to our brothers and sisters in Ireland who are resisting U.S. wars.
SHARE Friday, August 4, 2017 Prosecuting Famine Creation
I was asked to speak about prosecuting weapons dealers and war makers with a focus on Saudi Arabia. There are, I think, many ways that one could go about that. I say this as a non-lawyer, with certain perverse preferences that lawyers generally don't share.
SHARE Sunday, July 29, 2012 NBC Invents War-o-tainment
If you've watched the Olympics on NBC you've probably seen ads promoting a war-o-tainment reality show cohosted by retired U.S. General Wesley Clark, co-starring Todd Palin, and with no apparent role for reality.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 3, 2010 Single-Payer Healthcare Coming to Minnesota and Maryland
But Minnesota has an angle neither of these other states can claim: a serious candidate for governor who is the state's leading advocate for single-payer.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 11, 2018 Canadian Leftist Militarism Leaves Decency Behind
If one were to travel north through North America, with the seasons or the change in climate, harvesting crops of patriotic warmongering, the biggest drop in crop yield might come around the Mason Dixon Line, not the Canadian border.
(12 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 7, 2012 Can We Get Along Without Authorities?
I've just read Chris Hayes' new book "Twilight of the Elites," and am reminded of the question that progressive blogger and then-Congressman Alan Grayson staffer Matt Stoller asked Ellsberg.
SHARE Wednesday, August 7, 2019 Long After Hiroshima
How do we honor victims? We can remember them and appreciate who they were. But there were too many of them, and too many unknown to us. So, we can remember a sample of them, examples of them. And we can honor the living survivors, get to know and appreciate them while they are still alive.
SHARE Sunday, April 23, 2023 Having Enemies Is a Choice
Preparing for the possible emergence of enemies can only make sense for a government organized around the principle of desiring enemies.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 22, 2020 Now Do You See How Evil They Are?
This is how U.S. politicians have talked from the very beginning of the United States and prior to it about human beings outside the United States, about Native Americans, about enslaved people, about minority groups and immigrants. Yet, many have been able to avoid recognizing the evil. Now do you get it?
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 22, 2016 Yes, Dubya, Now I Miss You
When George W. Bush made the case for attacking and destroying the nation of Iraq, he made claims that, if true, would have justified nothing. And he proposed as evidence for those claims fraudulent, implausible, and even ridiculous pieces of information. But he was expected to produce evidence. There was no assumption that he should simply be taken on faith.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, July 28, 2017 Congressional Opponents of Sanctions As Nuts As Supporters
The latest House bill calls itself a bill "To provide congressional review and to counter aggression by the Governments of Iran, the Russian Federation, and North Korea, and for other purposes." Where is the aggression?
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 22, 2007 Kucinich to Speak for Full Hour on House Floor on Iraq Oil Law -- Watch C-Span
WASHINGTON DC - WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2007 - At approximately 11:00 a.m. today, Congressman Dennis Kucinich will invoke a rarely used procedure to offer a privileged motion claiming one hour of time to speak on the floor of the House of Representatives about current legislative plans to privatize Iraq's oil.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 12, 2015 What Are Foreign Military Bases For?
If you're like most people in the United States, you have a vague awareness that the U.S. military keeps lots of troops permanently stationed on foreign bases around the world. But have you ever wondered and really investigated to find out how many, and where exactly, and at what cost, and to what purpose, and in terms of what relationship with the host nations?
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 27, 2009 "Looting of America" Author Sees Opportunity in Meltdown
I've just interviewed Les Leopold, who blames the recent financial disasters on trends that began over 30 years ago, explains how a great deal of Wall Street's "investing" has had as much connection to the real economy as fantasy baseball has to baseball, diagnoses the failures of labor and the left to resist the financialization of the economy, views the current situation with genuine optimism as a rare moment in which...
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 13, 2011 CA Dem Party May Dump Progressive Caucus for Proposing Primary Challenge to Obama
On July 30th the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party passed a resolution proposing that a primary challenge be offered to Obama next year. The Progressive Caucus's certification expired at the same time, and while other caucuses were routinely recertified that day by the state party, the Progressive Caucus (I'm told by its chair, Karen Bernal) would not have been, had a vote been held.
SHARE Wednesday, June 17, 2020 Put These Antiwar People in Congress
Part of getting better governance out of Washington, D.C., will have to come from shifting power back from the White House to the Congress and putting better people into the Congress.
SHARE Monday, May 1, 2023 Make Your Town a Nuclear-Free Zone
Much of the southern half of the world is a nuclear-free zone. But what if you live in the northern half and under a national government that adores militarism and couldn't possibly care less what you think?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 27, 2020 Yet Another Mass Shooter Was a Military Veteran
Thursday yet another mass shooting was committed by a military veteran, this one in Milwaukee. Virtually all military veterans are not mass shooters. Many peace activists are veterans. Many everything under the sun are veterans. But mass shooters are very disproportionately military veterans.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 6, 2017 Hiroshima Haunting
I've spoken on television and to large crowds and to important big shots, but here you are asking me to speak to hundreds of thousands of ghosts and billions of ghosts in waiting.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 19, 2019 The Radical Underuse of Impeachment
Al Capone wasn't prosecuted for tax evasion because it's cool or smart or strategic to prosecute murderers for lesser crimes, but because proving murder in court was going to be more difficult.
That's not analogous to a Congressional impeachment, but the opposite of how Congress operates. Congress sits on indisputable evidence of the greatest crimes while impeaching presidents for lesser offenses that are harder to prove.
SHARE Saturday, January 21, 2006 Testimony from Bush Crimes Commission
Testimony for International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, Riverside Church, New York, Jan 20-22, 2006.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 7, 2006 Atheists for Peace
With the exception of Jews and African-Americans, no demographic group in the United States voted more heavily against Bush and for Gore and Kerry than did atheists, who make up 10 percent of the electorate. Atheists tend to be disproportionately progressive. So do atheistic countries.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 21, 2013 Switzerland Shows U.S. How to Handle CEOs
In Switzerland a petition from 100,000 people, or about 1.25% of the population, creates a public referendum. By this means, last March, Swiss voters created strict limits on executive pay.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 31, 2011 US or the War Machine
YOU MAY have heard something about a budget crisis in Washington this summer. Were you aware that in the midst of it the House of Representatives passed a military spending bill larger than ever before?
SHARE Tuesday, January 15, 2019 The World Will End in Fire
Great masses of ice are melting away. Glacier National Park will soon lack any glaciers. Greenland, that ice-covered land falsely labeled green and distorted by northern prejudice to appear larger than Africa on most western maps, is being transformed into something you can spray through a hose.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, December 4, 2017 How I Became a Peace Activist
I've been asked a number of times to write chapters for books on "how I became a peace activist." In some cases, I've just apologized and said I couldn't. For one book called Why Peace, edited by Marc Guttman, I wrote a very short chapter called "Why Am I a Peace Activist? Why Aren't You?" My point was basically to express my outrage that one would have to explain working to end the worst thing in the world.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 7, 2013 This War Too Is A Lie
Some smart people thought, and perhaps some still think, that the 2003-2011 war on Iraq was unique in that it was promoted with the use of blatant lies. When I'd researched dozens of other wars and failed to find one that wasn't based on a foundation of similar lies, I wrote a book about the most common war lie varieties.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, December 30, 2016 ACLU & CAIR Use Gold Star Father to Claim War on Iraq Was for Bill of Rights
Are you old enough to remember when liberal groups openly admitted that the war on Iraq was illegal and fraudulent, based on oil and profit and sadism?
Well, can you recall when the proponents of the war claimed it was a defense against nonexistent ties to terrorists and nonexistent weapons?
Even if you've wiped those memories, let me assure you, NOBODY ever claimed that attacking and destroying Iraq was necessary to ...
SHARE Sunday, July 5, 2015 Out of Whack
Obamacare is the name given a law that says you must buy overpriced private health insurance from companies that fund election campaigns. Yes, it's got some lipstick on it, but compared to a civilized healthcare system like other wealthy nations use it's awful. But how awful? Surely not as awful as . . .
SHARE Wednesday, July 10, 2019 Join the CIA: Travel the World Passing Out Nuclear Blueprints
In the year 2000, the CIA gave Iran (slightly and obviously flawed) blueprints for a key component of a nuclear weapon. In 2006 James Risen wrote about this "operation" in his book State of War. In 2015, the United States prosecuted a former CIA agent, Jeffrey Sterling, for supposedly having leaked the story to Risen. In the course of the prosecution, the CIA made public a partially redacted cable that showed that ...
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 13, 2019 What Does the Pelosi Posse Want?
If the purpose of the current Trump impeachment hearings were simply to fulfill Congress Members' oaths of office and do their jobs, it would be difficult to explain the past many years.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 14, 2010 Rule of Law Alive and Well Abroad
The World Justice Project on Thursday published a "Rule of Law Index," and there's no easy way to say this.
SHARE Wednesday, November 23, 2022 Kicking Ilhan Omar off a Committe Will Not Help
Incoming Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has threatened to kick Congresswoman Ilhan Omar off the House Foreign Affairs Committee, with the excuse that she's "anti-Semitic" and "anti-American." Of course, these charges are false, but they are dangerous, and sufficient reason in themselves to stand up for Ilhan Omar on this.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, November 5, 2007 Kucinich to Move Impeachment of Bush After Cheney
Congressman Dennis Kucinich said on a conference call Monday evening that after moving to impeach Vice President Cheney on Tuesday he will also introduce, at a future date, a resolution to impeach President Bush.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, May 28, 2018 Memorial Day THIS
"Memorial Day is a time to remember, appreciate, and honor the selfless patriots who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to freedom. At a time when our country seems so divided, we must not forget that it is because of their service and sacrifice that we live in the most free and prosperous nation on Earth." --Congressman Tom Garrett
It would be difficult to count all of the lies in the above statement.
SHARE Sunday, June 9, 2019 Anyone who'd rather not be shot should read this book
Thom Hartmann has long written and spoken on the topic of guns in the United States, along with many other topics. Of those topics he's dealt with that I know anything about, I have not always agreed with him on every detail, but on most I've found him highly informative and persuasive. His new book, The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment, is possibly the best book I've ever seen on its topic, both to read, and...
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, April 2, 2010 Washington Post Warns That Prosecuting Crime of Aggression Might Deter It
The Washington Post, which famously dismissed the Downing Street Minutes in 2005 as "old news" but now prints not one word opposing Rove's "complete fabrication" comment, on Friday published a column by a former Bush-Cheney administration official arguing that the ICC should never prosecute wars of aggression.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 15, 2006 Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping
By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval.
(13 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 24, 2020 The Supreme Court Vacancy Is in the Hands of the House of Representatives
I know the common story is that the Supreme Court vacancy is a matter for the U.S. Senate. But if you read this recent memo on what the Democrats could do if they really wanted to prevent packing the Court with rightwingers, something may jump out at you: The House also has control over this matter.
(11 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 22, 2011 Unable To Get Simeone Fired, Npr Drops "world Of Opera"
Now, unable to get Simeone fired, a decision which NPR would have carefully blamed entirely on WDAV, our public radio thugs have taken the only approach left to them if people who condescend to supporting the political efforts of the poor are to be kept out of public sight: NPR has dropped the program.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, March 20, 2015 Opposing War With a Smile
Remarks at teach-in at Spring Rising event March 20, 2015, UDC Law School. Note: Rally at White House is noon, March 21.
(14 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 27, 2016 Michael Moore Owes Me $4.99
Michael Moore has made some terrific movies in the past, and Where to Invade Next may be the best of them, but I expected Trumpland to be (1) about Trump, (2) funny, (3) honest, (4) at least relatively free of jokes glorifying mass murder. I was wrong on all counts and would like my $4.99 back, Michael.
(11 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 5, 2010 Nothing to Kill or Die For
If there were no religion, would there be no wars? It's not a simple question to answer.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 5, 2017 When a Nuclear War Planner Confesses
Daniel Ellsberg's new book is The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, June 19, 2017 Nobody Wants Trump in Office More Than Democrats
Ordinary people who identify themselves as Democrats have a variety of mostly noble intentions and desires. Elected Democrats in Washington, D.C., are another matter entirely.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 16, 2020 How Many Revelations Does It Take to Make a Light Bulb Go Off?
The U.S. government is certainly in the running for worst handling of coronavirus on earth. Where did this grotesque incompetence and indifference to human lives come from so suddenly?
What if it was always there?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, January 18, 2010 What Bush Did to Haiti
If a group of dedicated scholars, attorneys, journalists, and activists had tried to generate a comprehensive list of impeachable offenses committed by George W. Bush as president, and only 35 of them had been introduced into Congress, one of the many discarded ones, in rough and overly detailed form, might have read something like this.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, June 21, 2021 Remember to Forget the Alamo
Mexico once had a problem with a local provincial government promoting illegal immigration from the United States into Mexico in order to engage in the illegal slavery of illegally trafficked people. The locality involved was called Texas.
(14 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 10, 2014 Elizabeth Warren Could Use Some Elizabeth Peacen
Surely it's fair to ask Senator Warren, with her great interest in financial questions and economic justice, whether she knows the military budget exists and what she thinks of it.
SHARE Saturday, September 9, 2023 The Global Monroe Doctrine
Two hundred years ago this coming December, a local boy from my town gave a speech. In the years that followed pundits and politicians took an excerpt of that speech, carved it in marble, lit it with eternal white phosphorus bombs, and prayed to it before every shareholders' meeting.
SHARE Saturday, January 13, 2018 Bury the Monroe Doctrine
Remarks at No Foreign Bases Conference, Baltimore, MD, January 13, 2018
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 14, 2020 Why Is Trump the Only Candidate With a Budget Proposal?
An important job of any U.S. president is to propose an annual budget to Congress. Shouldn't it be a basic job of every presidential candidate to propose one to the public? Isn't a budget a critical moral and political document outlining what chunk of our public treasury should go to education or environmental protection or war?
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 25, 2017 Sanctions Are Crimes, Not Law Enforcement
The U.S. Senate has increased sanctions on the people of Iran and Russia, if the House and President go along. The Senate vote was 98-2, with Senators Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders voting no, the latter despite his support for the Russian half of the bill.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 16, 2019 Don't Iraq Iran
If Iran had spent the last few decades lying about and threatening the United States, and had attacked and built military bases in Canada and Mexico, and had imposed sanctions on the United States that were creating great suffering, and then a lying scheming war-crazed Iranian official announced that he believed the United States had put some missiles on some fishing boats in the Chesapeake Bay, would you believe that . . .
SHARE Monday, June 20, 2011 How the Mayors Debated and Passed an Antiwar Resolution
The U.S. Conference of Mayors has just done something it hasn't done since Vietnam, passing a resolution that supports efforts to speed up the ending of our current wars and calls on the President and Congress to "bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs."
SHARE Tuesday, June 18, 2019 What Survives Genocide?
Jeffrey Ostler's Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas, tells a complex, honest, and nuanced story of what overall and in many particular parts fits the UN definition of and the popular conception of genocide.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 15, 2010 Bush LIE-Bury Lacks Shovels
We don't have presidents anymore. Thanks in large part to Bush we have something else.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 14, 2016 White Helmets More Gray
When a wonderful program like Democracy Now does a story on the White Helmets in Syria, the problem is not that the White Helmets don't exist, or that they're not rescuing anyone, or that they're actually filmed in Los Angeles -- all of which is ridiculously untrue.
SHARE Wednesday, September 6, 2023 How To Write And Talk About War, And How Not To
A new guide has just been published at wordsaboutwar.org that provides clear standards for how to write about war, and how not to.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 19, 2014 Torturer on the Ballot
Michigan's First Congressional District is cold enough to freeze spit. Half of it is disconnected from the rest of Michigan and tacked onto the top of Wisconsin. A bit of it is further north than that, but rumored to be inhabited nonetheless.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 27, 2015 Bernie Sanders Gets a Foreign Policy
After 25,000 people asked, Senator Bernie Sanders added a few words to his presidential campaign website about the 96% of humanity he'd been ignoring.
SHARE Wednesday, August 3, 2005 On Washington Post's Defense of Judith Miller
We maintain that there is compelling evidence of dishonesty by both Bush and Miller, that Miller is not a journalist, and that Miller's sources are not sources.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 13, 2017 The Secure, the Dispossessed, and the Mentally Deranged Dotards
In The Secure and the Dispossessed, Nick Buxton and Ben Hayes have collected an unflinching survey of a species gone mad. The book's subtitle is "How the Military and Corporations Are Shaping a Climate-Changed World." In short, the Authoritarian Exceptionalist Military Corporate Complex is flamboyantly recognizing the hole it is in, and exponentially increasing the rate of digging, while hiring PR firms to redefine "digging."
SHARE Wednesday, July 31, 2019 Poor Wittle CNN
Of course, CNN gears its questions toward conflict which it imagines is good for ratings. But taking sides with the furthest right candidates is only one way to generate conflict, and not a very successful one.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 25, 2022 Costa Rica Is Not Real
The possibility that Costa Rica did something significant and hugely beneficial by abolishing its military is generally dealt with by ignoring it, but sometimes by making excuses for it.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 31, 2016 What if Revolution Were More Than a Campaign Slogan?
What if people in the United States came to understand "revolution" as something more than a campaign slogan in a presidential election campaign?
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 22, 2010 An Honest Look at Obama's First Year
This is an excellent detailed analysis from a progressive writer willing to note the good, the bad, and the ugly, and to admit when the bad and the ugly seem to be dominating the scene.
SHARE Monday, June 3, 2019 Can World War II Say Me Too?
No matter how many times one presents the facts to people at real-world events, or through online media, progressive radio, and non-US television networks, there is simply no stopping virtually everyone in the United States believing the most ludicrous myths about World War II.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, October 2, 2017 I just won a TED Talks Open Mic -- here's my 4-minute talk
On Oct 2, 2017, 20 of us gave 4-minute TED talks in Charlottesville and I won, allowing me to give a TED talk at the upcoming November 3, 2017, event at Charlottesville's Paramount Theater. This was my 4-minute talk on "Why End War." #TedXCville
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 13, 2018 Video of Debate on Is War Ever Justifiable?
On February 12, 2018, I debated Pete Kilner on the topic of "Is War Ever Justifiable?" (Location: Radford University; Moderator Glen Martin; videographer Zachary Lyman). Here is video:
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 19, 2019 How the U.S. Institute of Peace Avoids Peace in Afghanistan
Notice anything funny?
The United States is supposed to have a "lead agency" and support or not support particular programs to reintegrate Afghans into Afghanistan after the coming of peace.
SHARE Tuesday, October 11, 2005 Poll: Americans Want Bush Impeached
By a margin of 50% to 44%, Americans say that President Bush should be impeached if he lied about the war.
SHARE Sunday, January 28, 2018 The Post should be viewed by current editors of The Post
I was afraid that The Post would give us a Hollywood film version of the publication of the Pentagon Papers and manage never to say what was in the Pentagon Papers. I was afraid it would be turned into a pro-war movie. I was afraid we'd be told that the Washington Post was a courageous institution while Daniel Ellsberg was a dirty traitor. I am pleased to have had no reason for such concerns.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 13, 2017 What It Would Take to End Racism and War
I drove up here from where I live in Charlottesville, a town lately overrun by Nazis and other racists from around the country come to defend a giant heroic statue of Robert E. Lee on a horse that stands in the middle of town, as well as a similar one nearby of Stonewall Jackson. Those statues are now covered with giant black tarps but remain standing.
Raise your hand if you know why they remain standing.
SHARE Wednesday, August 15, 2018 Curing Fascism
Fascism is a disease, a delusion, a toxic worldview. It's encouraged and manipulated by propaganda. Its characteristics are numerous and to various degrees widespread and long-lasting. At what point their combination in sufficiently extreme degree rises to the level of fascism, as opposed to moderately fascistic tendencies I'm happy to leave to others to decide.
(15 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 26, 2017 Liberalism's Communications Problem
Liberals in the United States are relatively educated, yet extremely inarticulate when it comes to Trump, his budget proposal, or the U.S. military.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 17, 2023 Iraq and 15 Lessons We Never Learned
The peace movement did a great many things right in the first decade of this millennium, some of which we've forgotten. It also fell short in many ways. I want to highlight the lessons I think we've most failed to learn and suggest how we might benefit from them today.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 28, 2009 Which Side Are You On?
There appear to be two teams in Washington playing under the banners of elephants and donkeys. But . . .
SHARE Friday, July 17, 2009 House Lets States Do Single-Payer
On Friday morning at 9:45 a.m. ET in the House Committee on Education and Labor, the committee members voted 25 to 19 to pass Congressman Dennis Kucinich's amendment to the healthcare reform bill.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, March 22, 2010 Lies, Damn Lies, and the Media
ACORN is shutting down because of a fraudulent video pimped by the corporate media. U.S. forces in Afghanistan have heroically laid seige to and conquered a fictional city, helping build the case for further escalation. A cable news channel has created a right-wing mass movement by pretending it already existed.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 8, 2011 Pepper-Sprayed for Peace
I've been coughing and vomiting, and my head aches from pepper spray. I'll post videos and photos of why at the link above.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 16, 2016 The Skeletons in Keith Ellison's Display Case
Congressman Keith Ellison, candidate of progressive Democrats and many regressive Democrats for chair of the Democratic National Committee, eagerly urged the illegal and disastrous violent overthrow of the government of Libya in 2011, which he celebrated as a success despite what it meant for the rule of law, despite all the death and suffering, despite the predictable instability and weapons proliferation to follow.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 25, 2017 Yet Another #People'sPlatform Has Usual Anti-People Problem
Donald Trump uses backdrops formed by crowds of boy scouts or soldiers. Progressive Democrats use documents called #People'sPlatform endorsed by numerous quasi-grassroots organizations.
SHARE Tuesday, September 5, 2023 I Don't Care How Old Our Horribly Awful Elected Officials Are
Biden and Trump are shattering the records previously held by Clinton and Trump for unpopular top presidential candidates. Professional election gurus who thought Trump had become too unpopular now think he has a shot because Biden is just as unpopular.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, July 11, 2016 To Prosecute Blair for War You Do Not Need the ICC
To prosecute Tony Blair or George W. Bush or others responsible for the criminal attack on Iraq, or other top officials for other recent wars, does not require the International Criminal Court (ICC).
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 21, 2009 What Bush Told Blair Could End the Wars
The single most powerful, and yet largely ignored, document yet to emerge, might, now in 2009, finally, produce results. And, of course, it is our friends over in England who are, as always, two steps ahead of us.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 2, 2018 Top 100 Reasons Not to Bomb Iran
1. There are over 80 million men, women, and children in Iran. Bombing them would be mass-murder.
2. If the U.S. government and its allies bomb Libya and Iran when their governments choose not to have nuclear weapons, you can forget about North Korea and the rest of the world choosing not to have nuclear weapons.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 28, 2012 The Socialism of McCain, Graham, Ayotte
Now, such an announcement, which has been printed almost word-for-word in the nation's newspapers is, for better or worse, socialistic.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 18, 2015 The Four Horses Asses of the TPP Apocalypse
Some of those Democrats may not have needed carrots or sticks. But some clearly got them. Four in particular, we know, were given a ride in a aeroplane. Wheeeeee! Obama took them to the G7 with him on Air Force One. They are the four horses asses of the coming TPP apocalypse.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 10, 2016 Seymour Hersh Erases Public's Role on Syria
We once again owe the great reporter Seymour Hersh a serious debt for his reporting, in this case for his London Review of Books articles on President Barack Obama's war making, now published as a book called The Killing of Osama bin Laden. Despite the title, three of the four articles are about Syria. But there is a shortcoming in how Hersh tells history, as in how many reporters do.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 23, 2013 Top U.S. Terrorist Group: the FBI
A careful study of the FBI's own data on terrorism in the United States, reported in Trevor Aaronson's book The Terror Factory, finds one organization leading all others in creating terrorist plots in the United States: the FBI.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 14, 2018 Video of Debate #2: Is War Ever Justifiable?
Our first debate was February 12th. This was our second, held February 13, 2018, at Eastern Mennonite University, moderated by Lisa Schirch.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 12, 2017 How Outlawing War Changed the World in 1928
I have learned a great deal from this phenomenal book, easily the best book I've read in years. I could write an essay about each of its over 400 pages. While I agree with a great deal of it and strongly disagree with certain parts, the two are easily separable. The brilliant sections are no less valuable because of those sections that fall short.
SHARE Saturday, August 5, 2017 Getting to Peace Through Local Governments
A school board member in Virginia once agreed to support creating a celebration of the International Day of Peace but said he would do so only as long as no one would misunderstand and get the idea that he was opposed to any wars.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 16, 2016 How to Get Yourself Named "Pro-Assad"
It's not hard to do. You can probably accomplish it at home quite easily. In These Times just published an article, for example, that calls Veterans For Peace, United National Antiwar Coalition, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Seymour Hersh, Gareth Porter, Kathy Kelly, Counterpunch, Consortiumnews, Antiwar.com, and many more, including me supporters of Bashar al Assad.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, January 2, 2017 Fantasies About Russia Could Doom Opposition to Trump
To many Democrats for whom killing a million people in Iraq just didn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense, and who considered Obama's bombing of eight nations and the creation of the drone murder program to be praiseworthy, Trump will be impeachable on Day 1.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, August 10, 2012 Lies, Damn Lies, and War Lies
U.S. policy became promotion of U.S. imperialism as far as it could reach, and Japanese imperialism beyond that.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 13, 2015 Oh Hell, Hillary
They really didn't know she was running until now, and they wanted to know if John McCain was her opponent. And yet they had the sense to ask if she would cause more wars and if there was really any difference between Hillary and the Republicans. If even the places that don't know she's running know that, perhaps there is hope for public awareness of basic facts after all.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 28, 2019 Meritocracy Mythologizing
You'd think a publisher with this many names could check for glaring errors in its books: "Currency, Crown Publishing Group, Penguin Random House LLC." And you'd be right. So this isn't an error. It's a lie accepted as a desirable myth:
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 7, 2009 How to End Wars
It's not how you think.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 23, 2015 Veto Corleone Already in White House
President Barack Obama has vetoed a military authorization bill. Why would he do such a thing?
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 16, 2013 Drone Pilots Expose Politicians' Lies
... drone pilots have begun talking to the media. And they describe policies that bear a lot closer resemblance to reporting from the areas where the missiles strike. These pilots should be brought before Congress.
SHARE Thursday, June 20, 2019 Soldiers Without Guns
A new film by Will Watson, called Soldiers Without Guns, ought to shock a great many people -- not because it utilizes a yet more gruesome form of violence or bizarre form of sex (the usual shockers in movie reviews), but because it recounts and shows us a true story that contradicts the most basic assumptions of politics, foreign policy, and popular sociology.
SHARE Monday, February 13, 2006 How You - Yes, You - Can End the War
There is a multitude of ways in which each of us can alter our daily habits to help make this happen.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, March 12, 2010 Every Soldier Has a Story You Do Not Want to Hear
Would the United States military lie about how four Marines were killed? Would abuse continue at Abu Ghraib after the scandal exploded? Any soldier you talk to has a story you may not want to hear. I recently had occasion to speak with two that were particularly troubling.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, May 15, 2017 What I Saw When I Visited a Russian School
As I was heading off to visit Russia, a friend told me of a friend who knew a Russian school teacher. I asked if I could visit the school, and I brought along a couple of American friends. Here's a video of what we saw there.
SHARE Tuesday, May 28, 2019 The Worst Statue in Charlottesville
In this case, Clark has a couple of other men with guns behind him, and he's reaching back for a gun. There are three Native Americans in front of him. The UVA student newspaper celebrated the statue when it was first created as "explaining the futility of resistance." The base of the sculpture calls Clark the "Conqueror of the Northwest."
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Declaration of Indictment
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a gang of lawless thugs and insist on the appointment of a special prosecutor to enforce the laws of the land even against those until recently holding the reins of Power
SHARE Thursday, May 7, 2015 Fast Track the Good Stuff
What if, instead, a fast track were set up for those items favored by a vast majority of the public, or required for the future habitability of the planet, but which meet resistance from campaign funders, lobbyists, and the corporate media?
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 27, 2023 There Are Easier Ways to Talk About War and Peace
War and peace could be a very simple issue. We make it very complicated. People say and do things that I simultaneously want to cheer for and condemn.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 6, 2009 It's National Nancy Off the Table Day
That's right, children, it's national Nancy Day, honoring the occasion on May 7, 2006, when Nancy Pelosi first allowed Tim Russert to badger her into agreeing that she wouldn't permit the impeachment of Saint George or Father Dick, not even if they barbequed children on the White House lawn.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 23, 2010 Clogging and Facilitating
It's odd that we would all think our government was broken, call it a democracy, and go fight wars to supposedly impose democracy on other countries, a concept that makes crystal clear how perverse our understanding of democracy is.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 14, 2012 Abolishing War: One Last Step
I'm willing to bet that even we in the peace movement are fairly unaware of some of the previous steps.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 4, 2007 Self-Impeachment by Signing Statement
Imagine a president who violates numerous laws that predate his presidency. Imagine that Congress redundantly and repeatedly re-bans that criminal behavior. Imagine a president who repeatedly throws out the new bans with signing statements and continues to violate the same laws. This is the heart of the matter of the Bush "signing statements." It is an unprecedented use of signing statements.
SHARE Wednesday, February 14, 2018 Witness Out of Palestine
Anna Baltzer's amazing book Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories has been updated over the years, and I've just read it for the first time.
SHARE Thursday, February 22, 2018 Billboards Opposing Drone Wars Are Going Up All Over Syracuse, NY
World Beyond War has been raising funds for and renting billboards in opposition to war. We've run into censorship from numerous billboard companies but persevered, and more billboards are on their way.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 21, 2012 How Dare Russia
The United States Congress is outraged. Russia, it seems, may have wrongly imprisoned, tortured, and murdered a whistleblower. In the land of the free, our good representatives are outraged, I tell you.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, May 13, 2016 Just War Lies
With the Catholic Church, of all things, turning against the doctrine that maintains there can be a "just war," it's worth taking a serious look at the thinking behind this medieval doctrine, originally based in the divine powers of kings, concocted by a saint who actually opposed self-defense but supported slavery and believed killing pagans was good for the pagans.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 1, 2008 Pelosi's New Chief of Staff
In a surprise and apparently sudden decision Tuesday evening, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the hiring of a new Chief of Staff for her DC office. The choice of someone without any experience on Capitol Hill surprised many observers, leading to speculation as to what changes Pelosi may have in store for the new year.
SHARE Friday, June 2, 2017 Corbynize This Trumped Up World
Making Jeremy Corbyn the Prime Minister of the U.K. would do more for the world and everyone in it than either of the two available outcomes of any recent U.S. election could have done. Here in the U.S. I always protest that I am not against elections, I think we should have one some day. Well, now we have one -- only it's across the pond.
SHARE Thursday, March 30, 2023 Hell Is Other People's Thinking About War
The book is called War Is Hell: Studies in the Right of Legitimate Violence. The author assured me that it did not argue in favor of violence. He was right. I've added it to my list of great war abolition books (see below) and consider it the best book I've read recently.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 13, 2006 Tomgram: David Swanson on War Porn and Iraq
Many of these images were sent by American soldiers to a website that marketed pornography. Presumably, these were viewed as war pornography. Presumably, they were created by people who have come to love war.
SHARE Friday, October 7, 2022 Opposing War Together With Libertarians
I've just read In Search of Monsters to Destroy by Christopher J. Coyne. It's published by the Independent Institute (which seems dedicated to untaxing the rich, destroying socialism, and so forth).
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 12, 2017 What About Weinstein's Public Offenses?
Harvey Weinstein, I've just read, is "the disgraced Pulp Fiction producer." But isn't someone who encourages millions of people to think of murder and torture as super cool and fun already pre-disgraced? Doesn't he arrive in the locked office with the actress cowering in the corner already publicly disgraced and intent on disgracing himself in private?
SHARE Monday, September 9, 2019 Zombie Zombie Zombie
CNN is outraged that Trump was too friendly with Russians, supposedly endangering an honorable spy snooping into the Russian government.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 25, 2013 Top 45 Lies in Obama's Speech at the U.N.
President Obama's opening lines at the U.N. on Tuesday looked down on people who would think to settle disputes with war.
SHARE Monday, August 29, 2022 2022 War Abolisher Awards to Go to Italian Dock Workers, New Zealand Filmmaker, U.S. Environmental Group, and British M
World BEYOND War's Second Annual War Abolisher Awards will recognize the work of an environmental organization that has prevented military operations in state parks in Washington State, a filmmaker from New Zealand who has documented the power of unarmed peacemaking, Italian dock workers who have blocked the shipment of weapons of war, and British peace activist and Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn who has taken a consistent
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 1, 2008 Obama: DO NOT CONCEDE!
Both of the last two elections were conceded by the Democratic presidential candidate. The 2004 election was handed to George Bush while votes were still being counted in closely-fought Ohio. While the 2000 election was contested to the Supreme Court, it too was ultimately conceded to Bush "for the good of the country."
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 28, 2022 RAND Corporation Urged Creation of the Horrors You're Seeing in Ukraine
In 2019, the RAND Corporation tentacle of the U.S. Military Industrial Congressional "Intelligence" Media Academic "Think" Tank Complex published a report claiming to have "conducted a qualitative assessment of 'cost-imposing options' that could unbalance and overextend Russia."
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 23, 2021 325 Organizations Propose Climate Solution You've Never Heard Of
Many of us have been screaming about it at the tops of our lungs for years and years, writing about it, making videos about it, organizing conferences on it. Yet it is ineluctably unknowable.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 18, 2008 Bush Firing Disloyal Federal Employees
Bush has, for some time now, been terminating large numbers of employees in the federal government, people known as whistleblowers, people suspected of disloyalty.
SHARE Wednesday, March 23, 2011 Can Afghans and Pakistanis Teach Nonviolence?
I may soon have an opportunity to meet with nonviolent activists in Afghanistan, an area of the world we falsely imagine has earned the name "graveyard of empires" purely through violent resistance.
SHARE Wednesday, October 25, 2017 Associated Press Associates Itself With War
The U.S. military has set a deadline for war, and if they don't launch a war by then, well, well . . . well, then there won't be a war yet, that's what!
SHARE Monday, March 9, 2020 Ban Parades Now
As I proposed before the CPAC meeting and will again now, there is a danger in large gatherings and a precedent of ignoring that danger to great detriment.
SHARE Saturday, October 28, 2017 How Peace Studies Can Help End Wars
Remarks at Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference in Birmingham, Alabama, October 28, 2017.
SHARE Tuesday, February 20, 2018 Does Peace Need a Business Plan?
If you had just asked me if peace needed a "business plan," I'd have replied, "Sure! Just like it needs a toupeed golfing fascist reality-TV creep in the White House! That'll just about fix everything! War is over! Thanks!"
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 29, 2023 The War Abolisher Awards of 2023 and Why They're Needed
World BEYOND War has just announced the four winners of its third-annual War Abolisher Awards. All are relatively unknown individuals or organizations working from different angles at the giant task of ridding the world of war.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 25, 2010 On Voting for Bad Democrats: the Perriello Predicament
What if you told your local congress critter you'd oppose them if they funded more war, and they funded more war, but their opponent is even worse and a Republican?
SHARE Thursday, March 10, 2011 Michigan Fascism Old News in DC
Michigan governors aren't breaking entirely new ground in the ongoing U.S. collapse into fascism.
SHARE Thursday, April 30, 2015 Grand Canyon Sized Outrage Over Plans for Grand Canyon
One of the most deservedly celebrated natural wonders in North America is also among the most endangered. Plans for uranium mining, a tourist tram line, and massive "development" threaten the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, August 31, 2015 Fascism From West Point
This headline in the Guardian is completely accurate: West Point professor calls on US military to target legal critics of war on terror.
But it hardly covers to content of the 95-page paper being reported on: see the PDF.
SHARE Monday, January 15, 2018 Removing Trump Will Require New Activists; The Old Ones Won't Do It
It was convenient for the teaching moment that James Risen just recounted the New York Times' refusal back in 2004 to report on George W. Bush's (secret and criminal) warrantless spying prior to Bush's "re-election" for fear of costing Bush votes, at the same time that a harmoniously bipartisan Congress was just now voting to empower Donald Trump to (openly and legally) spy on everybody without any warrants.
SHARE Thursday, April 14, 2022 Famous Haikus Updated
An old silent pond
A frog jumps into the pond
Thud! Dried up last year.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 23, 2010 46 Congressional Candidates Oppose War Spending
Forty-six congressional candidates and 17 activist organizations released a statement on Monday opposing any more funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and inviting more candidates, incumbents, and organizations to sign on.
(30 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 4, 2015 Why Won't Bernie Talk About War?
If your local city or town government spent 54% of its funds on an immoral, disastrous, and unpopular project, and your brave, populist, socialist candidate for mayor virtually never acknowledged its existence, would you think something was wrong? Would his admirable positions on numerous smaller projects, and on sources of revenue, ring a little hollow?
(14 comments) SHARE Friday, September 28, 2018 17 Years of Getting Afghanistan Completely Wrong
We expect 17-year-olds to have learned a great deal starting from infancy, and yet full-grown adults have proven incapable of knowing anything about Afghanistan during the course of 17 years of U.S.-NATO war. Despite war famously being the means of Americans learning geography, few can even identify Afghanistan on a map. What else have we failed to learn?
SHARE Thursday, October 9, 2008 ABC Is Lying About NSA
On Thursday, ABC News reported a big new break in the story of illegal and unconstitutional spying that our government has engaged in for years now, except that there was nothing new in the story and the important parts were left out.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 1, 2019 The Russian Peace Threat
A lot more energy is invested by people in theorizing what respectable and corrupt influences motivate members of the U.S. Congress than at least some members of the U.S. Congress invest in thinking or in having opinions at all.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 12, 2020 I Wish There Really Were a Plot to Create a Global Government
I saw a criticism of NPR for reporting on claims that coronavirus is being used to set up a world government. The criticism was that NPR never mentioned that the claims are nonsense lacking any documentation. I have an additional criticism: neither NPR nor its critics mentions that it might be a very good thing if such claims were true.
SHARE Wednesday, November 30, 2022 The Sacred Oil Leak in Pearl Harbor
Stephen Dedalus believed the cracked lookingglass of a servant made a good symbol of Ireland. If you had to name a symbol of the United States, what would it be?
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, October 10, 2014 Again the Peace Prize Not for Peace
The Nobel Committee insists on awarding the prize to either a leading maker of war or a person who has done some good work in an area other than peace.
(16 comments) SHARE Friday, August 5, 2011 Truman Lied, Hundreds of Thousands Died
When Truman lied to America that Hiroshima was a military base rather than a city full of civilians, people no doubt wanted to believe him.
SHARE Wednesday, September 23, 2015 The War to End Slavery Didn't As documented in Douglas Blackmon's book, Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of
As documented in Douglas Blackmon's book, Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, the institution of slavery in the U.S. South largely ended for as long as 20 years in some places upon completion of the U.S. civil war. And then it was back again, in a slightly different form, widespread, controlling, publicly known and accepted -- right up to World War II.
SHARE Wednesday, September 18, 2019 Shannon Airport Sprays Carcinogenic Chemicals
On August 15, 2019, a U.S. military plane caught fire at Shannon Airport. The Shannon Airport Authority Fire Service put out the fire using a spray foam. The Fire Service uses foam containing carcinogenic chemicals.
SHARE Wednesday, February 24, 2021 U.S. Spends 11 Times What China Does on Military Per Capita
NATO and various columnists employed by major U.S. newspapers and "think" tanks believe that military spending levels should be measured in comparison to nations' financial economies. If you have more money, you should spend more money on wars and war preparations. I'm not sure if this is based on opinion polls in Afghanistan and Libya expressing gratitude for war as a public service or some other source of data less imaginary
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 15, 2015 I Just Asked Erik Prince To Stop Bribing Politicians
"It's bad enough to be creating more profit incentive for war," I told former head of Blackwater Erik Prince, "but you recycle part of the profits as bribes for more war in the form of so-called campaign contributions. You yourself have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to political parties and candidates."
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, March 14, 2008 German Buys 3 Pages of NY Times to Explain War to Americans
Jürgen Todenhöfer says on his website that he has drafted 10 theses to be printed in 3 parts. The first 2 parts, containing the first 5 theses, were printed on two full pages of today's New York Times, pages 6 and 7, and in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Al-Quds Al-Arabi. The third part is to be printed on Sunday.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 14, 2015 CIA on Trial in Virginia for Planting Nuke Evidence in Iran
Since Tuesday and continuing for the coming three weeks, an amazing trial is happening in U.S. District Court at 401 Courthouse Square in Alexandria, Va. The trial is open to the public, and among the upcoming witnesses is Condoleezza Rice, but -- unlike the Chelsea Manning trial -- most of the seats at this somewhat similar event are empty.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 12, 2017 Troopaganda Eats Its Own Tail
Once war is understood as having no actual justification, but rather as having as many different justifications as participants, what if it occurs to someone to suggest that perhaps war isn't justifiable at all?
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 8, 2021 Knowing Humanity's End Is Near and Staying Sane
I read Daniel Sherrell's Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World sitting on the edge of what was left of the Shenandoah River after a summer of very little rain.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 16, 2011 Obama vs. Jobs; Hope vs. Reality
Last week, President Obama racked up several more broken campaign promises as he pushed through Congress three new job-killing corporate trade agreements.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, April 16, 2010 Norfolk Without the Navy
It's hard to imagine a desirable and sustainable world with the world's largest naval base still in it, but it's hard for a lot of people in Norfolk, Virginia, to imagine it gone.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, November 16, 2015 Bernie Sanders Mentioned the Military Budget
If U.S. President were not a mythical position but a serious job, the job interview would include asking the candidates their basic plans of action. This would start with, "What will you encourage Congress to spend a couple of trillion dollars on each year?"
SHARE Monday, October 2, 2017 What's North Korea Afraid of?
"Peace" clubs in U.S. schools are likely to teach that a local bully is afraid and in need of help. They are much less likely to teach that about entities involved in the actual subject of peace (meaning the absence of war), such as -- to take the example momentarily most prominent in U.S. propaganda -- North Korea.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 23, 2017 Can Architecture Fix Our Health, Minds, Societies, Environment?
Of all the factors that impact our lives in major ways, with ripple effects into all corners of human existence, the question of how we build our built environment receives impressively little attention. We're far more likely to hear what can be done with sleep, diet, switching to a civilized healthcare system, emphasizing education rather than incarceration, creating a sustainable local economy, et al.
SHARE Tuesday, August 15, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: James Loewen on the Lies That Confederate Statues Tell
James Loewen's books include Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong, Lies My Teacher Told Me and Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. Earlier this year, he spoke at a symposium in Richmond on Confederate monuments and memorials, available on C-SPAN.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, February 16, 2018 A Reply to the Taliban
As one person in the United States I cannot offer you a representative reply on behalf of all of us. Nor can I use polls to tell you what my fellow Americans think, because, as far as I know, polling companies haven't asked the U.S. public about the war on your country in years. Possible explanations for this include:
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 17, 2008 Rep. Leonard Boswell Signs onto Cheney Impeachment
Congressman Leonard Boswell, right-wing Democrat from Iowa'a third district, would apparently like to avoid the fate of Congressman Al Wynn in Maryland. Al Wynn nearly lost a primary in 2006 to a challenger from his left, Donna Edwards. He transformed himself from one of the most corporate and militaristic members of Congress into one of the most responsive to his constituents, reversing his position on the occupation of Iraq
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 3, 2011 What to Replace the Imprison-Americans Bill With
The funny thing about the bill that the Senate just passed that lets presidents and the military lock you up without a charge or a trial -- well, not funny ha ha but funny unusual -- is that the basic bill to which that little monstrosity was attached is even worse.
SHARE Wednesday, March 11, 2015 Which Party Do You View Iran Through?
Most people in the United States have little contact with Iran or its culture. Iran comes up as a scary threat in the speeches of demagogues. A range of debate is offered between obliterate it and pressure it into compliance with our civilized norms, or at least the civilized norms of some other country that doesn't obliterate or pressure people.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, September 25, 2015 War Is a Force That Gives Us Idiocy
During this year's competition for Miss Italy, contestants were asked what historical epoch they might like to have lived in and why. The first young woman to answer said 1942. She had heard so much about World War II, she said, that she'd like to actually live it -- plus, she added, women didn't have to be in the military anyway.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, March 31, 2017 Let Trump Golf, Let the Public Draft the Budget
A sample of informed public opinion should override any veto, filibuster, house resolution, or executive order as far as I'm concerned. We'd all be better off.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 4, 2015 The Atlantic Can't Figure Out Why U.S. Loses Wars
The cover of the January-February 2015 The Atlantic asks "Why Do The Best Soldiers in the World Keep Losing?" which leads to an article that fails to answer the question.
SHARE Wednesday, September 14, 2016 Suing Saudi: Congress Is Right, Stephen Kinzer Is Wrong
Now there you have two things that I never expected to write. How often is Congress right about anything or Stephen Kinzer wrong? Congress wants 9/11 victims' families to be able to sue Saudi Arabia for its role in those crimes. Kinzer does not.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 19, 2023 Why Does Turning Against a War Never Include Admitting Who Was Right All Along?
Milley's accidentally saying the quiet part aloud is not understood as blurting out something forbidden but as actually grasping some unique insight into a problem the world's thinkers were otherwise universally failing to comprehend.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 9, 2011 Nonviolent Activism Is Middle Eastern
Nonviolence doesn't make it into corporate news reporting very much, and there are two main explanations for that. One, terrorism sells newspapers. Two, democracy threatens corporate power.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 23, 2015 Gradual Injustice
Chris Woods' excellent new book is called Sudden Justice: America's Secret Drone Wars. The title comes from a claim that then-President George W. Bush made for drone wars. The book actually tells a story of gradual injustice. The path from a U.S. government that condemned as criminal the type of murder that drones are used for to one that treats such killings as perfectly legal and routine has been gradual and non-legal.
SHARE Friday, May 12, 2023 Ending War on Earth in Illinois (Or Any Other Locality)
We very much need World BEYOND War educational and activist events and campaigns in Illinois (and every other location). We also need the people of Illinois (and every other location on Earth) as part of the global movement to end war.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, May 4, 2015 Watching Shadows of Liberty
A powerful new film on what's wrong with the U.S. media is now being screened around the country. It's called Shadows of Liberty and you can set up a screening of it as part of an upcoming international week of actions for whistleblowers called Stand Up For Truth. Or you can buy the DVD or catch it on Link TV.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, June 15, 2020 Lee, Jayapal, AOC Introduce Bill to Move $350 Billion from Militarism to Human Needs
"Congress supports moves to reduce the priority given to war in our foreign policy and our current war-based national economy by using significant cuts, up to $350,000,000,000 as detailed above, from current budget plans, while using the funds to increase our diplomatic capacity and for domestic programs that will keep our Nation and our people safer."
(9 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 16, 2007 Is Peace or Impeachment Possible?
I went to a party yesterday in Washington, D.C. You might think we have very little to celebrate, but this was a party to say goodbye and good riddance to Alberto Gonzales!
SHARE Tuesday, September 11, 2018 Leave Syria the Hell Alone
Not only would the United States and the world be infinitely better off if in response to 9/11 the U.S. government had done nothing at all, as Jon Schwartz tweets each year, but Syria would be dramatically better off if just about any outside force had never gotten in or now got out.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, March 25, 2019 Congress Should Begin Impeachment, But Not the Way You Think
Back before Donald Trump was inaugurated, I wrote an article called "Fantasies About Russia Could Doom Opposition to Trump." Perhaps it is less quixotic, or perhaps it is more, to hope that, after more than two years of being barraged with those fantasies, but with their main focus having publicly flopped, more people will now be open to trying something else.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, October 5, 2012 Where Is War Making Taking Us?
when the war planners don't get to have a war that they want, they don't hold an annual press conference to announce that the peace movement has won again.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 30, 2016 75 Years of Pearl Harbor Lies
Pearl Harbor Day today is like Columbus Day 50 years ago. That is to say: most people still believe the hype. The myths are still maintained in their blissful unquestioned state. "New Pearl Harbors" are longed for by war makers, claimed, and exploited. Yet the original Pearl Harbor remains the most popular U.S. argument for all things military, including the long-delayed remilitarization of Japan.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 10, 2007 Powell's Chief of Staff Proposes Impeachment
On Thursday, May 10, 2007, Lawrence Wilkerson, speaking on National Public Radio, proposed impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
SHARE Wednesday, October 23, 2013 Drone Island in the East River
We're making murder in its most recognizable form acceptable. And we're defining it out of existence when the victims belong to that 96% of humanity that's never been considered quite all the way human in this country.
SHARE Friday, April 21, 2017 How U.S. Race Laws Inspired Nazis
James Q. Whitman's new book is called Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. It is understated and overdocumented, difficult to argue with. No doubt some will try.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 17, 2021 Lies, Damn Lies, and What We've Been Told About Afghanistan
It's far from the longest U.S. war. There was no peace before or after it. There is no after it until they end it and bombing has always been most of what it is. It has had nothing to do with opposing terrorism. It has been a one-sided slaughter, a mass killing over two decades by a single invading army and air force dragging along token mascots from dozens of vassal states.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, January 31, 2011 The Art of Demonization
The believed evil of our opponents allows us to avoid counting the non-American women or men or children killed.
SHARE Friday, June 26, 2009 Our Political Prisoners
Did you know the United States has in recent years prosecuted hundreds of people for political reasons? This is a crime, or rather a crime wave, that has thus far been addressed primarily by ignoring it.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 13, 2017 Things Russians Can Teach Americans
I suppose the list is lengthy and includes dancing, comedy, karaoke singing, vodka drinking, monument building, diplomacy, novel writing, and thousands of other fields of human endeavor, in some of which Americans can teach Russians as well. But what I'm struck by at the moment in Russia is the skill of honest political self-reflection, as found in Germany, Japan, and many other nations to a great degree as well.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 27, 2010 Gone a Week and You Trash the Country
Wow, I was gone less than a week to the Conch Republic, and now return to a nation in which I would heartily recommend to any city, county, or state that it follow the example of the Florida Keys and secede from the so-called union.
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 10, 2013 The Other Super Power Is Winning
It's not Russia. It's not al Qaeda. It's not Bashar al-Assad. The other super power is the people of the world -- and the people of, but not by or for, the United States.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 11, 2022 Learning the Wrong Lessons from Ukraine
These lessons are popular, logical - even unquestionable truth in many minds - and catastrophically and demonstrably wrong.
SHARE Monday, June 20, 2022 Canada's War Problem
The F-35 is not a tool of peace or even of military defense. It is a stealth, offensive, nuclear-weapons-capable airplane designed for surprise attacks with the potential to intentionally or accidentally launch or escalate wars, including nuclear war. It is for attacking cities, not just other airplanes.
SHARE Wednesday, April 15, 2020 What's the Matter With Science?
What's the matter with science? By that, do I mean, why don't we turn away from corrupt politics and religion and follow the way of science? Or do I mean, why have we allowed science to so corrupt our politics and our culture? I mean, of course, both.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 22, 2020 Reparations of an Economic Hit Man
Perkins has not just been confessing to and exposing the actions of himself and others in imposing destructive policies on nations around the globe for the profits of U.S. corporations. He's also been working for many years to make reparations, to reverse the damage.
SHARE Thursday, February 2, 2006 WH Memo: Phony UN Planes to Provoke War
"that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of 'flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours'. Mr Bush added: 'If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]'."
SHARE Wednesday, July 18, 2012 Minnesota Town Bans Signs in Yards Unless They're Pro-War
At a festival called Peacestock in Wisconsin last weekend, I met a woman who lives in Little Falls, Minnesota. That city had forced her to take down signs in her own yard, signs that said "Occupy Wall Street," "Back the 99 Percent" and "Boycott Monsanto."
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 13, 2013 Two Kinds of Countries: Israel's Dangerous Path
There are two kinds of countries or societies or places to live. In the first kind, decent, fair, kind, and respectful treatment of every person takes precedent over anyone's preferences for how a culture changes or how much effort is expended trying to slow the change of a culture, or which cultures mix with each other, or which groups intermarry.
SHARE Thursday, August 17, 2017 Creative Anti-Nazism
The people of Durham , N.C., have the right idea. Not only have they taken down a Confederate war statue themselves, but they've lined up en masse to turn themselves in for that crime, overwhelming the so-called justice system.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 17, 2010 Is Best Antiwar Voice on TV Glenn Beck?
Beck begins by telling his mostly rightwing audience that it is an admirable thing to change your mind, that this indicates you have learned something.
SHARE Wednesday, October 11, 2017 PBS's Vietnam Acknowledges Nixon's Treason
I want to call particular, and grateful, attention to one item that the PBS film does include, namely Richard Nixon's treason.
SHARE Wednesday, March 25, 2020 Oleaginous Kakistocracy: A Good Time to Abolish Pipelines
A moment in which U.S. politicians are openly talking about the need to sacrifice lives to a disease in the name of profit may be a good moment for recognizing the evil motivations of the same politicians when it comes to foreign policy.
SHARE Tuesday, April 4, 2017 Remembering Past Wars . . . and Preventing the Next!
Joanne Sheehan, Coordinator of War Resisters League New England, former Chair of War Resisters' International, and co-editor of Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns. Maria Santelli, executive director of Center on Conscience and War, founding director of the New Mexico GI Rights Hotline. Glen Ford, activist, journalist, radio host, executive editor of the Black Agenda Report. Alice Slater, New York Director of the Nuclear Age Pea
SHARE Tuesday, January 15, 2019 Talk Nation Radio: Rob Kajiwara on U.S. Bases on Okinawa
Rob Kajiwara is an Okinawan-Hawaian singer-songwriter and visual artist. In 2017, he was made a cultural ambassador for his ancestral village of Nakagusuku, Okinawa. In 2018 he was also made a cultural ambassador / special envoy for Ke Aupuni o Hawaii (the Hawaiian Kingdom) in order to share Hawaiian history, culture, and issues in Ryukyu. Rob Kijiwara recently organized a petition to the White House about Okinawa.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 8, 2022 The Eight Stupidest Things About Nuclear Weapons
"[W]e cannot aim for total victory over Putin's Russia, because that could trigger a nuclear war " yet something like total victory may be the only way to stop Putin from just bleeding Ukraine forever." -- Thomas Friedman
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 21, 2011 Afghanistan Withdrawal: Obama Lied
The United States has about 200,000 military personnel in Afghanistan, half of them troops, half of them contractors.
SHARE Monday, May 11, 2020 Do Not Meet With Mike Pence, Go to Jail, or Join the Military
We don't know what the long-term damage is of coronavirus in those who recover. We don't know who will die among those who catch it. We do know that we each have a responsibility to avoid catching it and avoid spreading it. Here are some ways to do that.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 5, 2009 Remove the Filibuster from the Senate Rules
When the Democrats were in the minority and out of the White House, they told us they wanted to work for us but needed to be in the majority. So, in 2006, we put them there. Then they told us that they really wished they could work for us but they needed bigger majorities and the White House. So, in 2008/2009, we gave them those things, and deprived them of two key excuses for inaction. We took away the veto excuse and the fil
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, June 21, 2010 An Easy Way to Dramatically Change Congress
There are lots of ways to change Congress that falsely appear easy, that would alter the rules and patterns of behavior if only Congress were already fixed and willing to make the changes, or if we owned the television networks, or if people could suddenly hear what they're paid good money never to hear. But I've got a way to change Congress that is actually easy.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, May 15, 2017 American/Russian Vladimir Posner on the State of Journalism
Vladimir Posner, who spent his youth in the United States, France, and the Soviet Union, and who cohosted a show with Phil Donahue on U.S. television for years, met with a group of visitors to Moscow from the U.S. on Monday, offering his well-informed views on a range of media-related topics.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 17, 2015 Nuclear Madness and Resistance
The Jeffrey Sterling trial is a bit disheartening for anyone who'd rather humanity paid a bit of attention to avoiding nuclear apocalypse, even though Sterling exposed the CIA's crime to Congress, and Sterling or someone else (at least 90 people could have done it) exposed the crime to an author who put it in a book and would have put it in the New York Times if, you know, it weren't the New York Times.
SHARE Thursday, February 6, 2020 Pinkerism and Militarism Walk into a Room
Charles Kenny's book, Close the Pentagon, has an endorsement from Steven Pinker despite wanting to close something that Pinker rarely acknowledges exists.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 15, 2022 McNamara's Son on Some of His Father's Lies About Vietnam
Pretty much anything that complicates the story of a person is a good corrective to the tendency to simplify and caricature. So, one has to welcome Craig McNamara's book, Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, June 15, 2015 Human Experimentation: a CIA Habit
The Guardian on Monday made public a CIA document allowing the agency's director to "approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research."
Human what?
SHARE Thursday, February 23, 2006 Sweat Shop Workers Tour US Colleges That Sell Their Products
Theirs are stories of success. They work in factories in Mexico and El Salvador that have unionized and won worker rights and higher pay and benefits with help from the activism of US students.
(22 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 24, 2007 The Conyers Legacy
About 47 of us spent 8 or 9 hours yesterday in jail for protesting a man who, at least when he woke up yesterday morning, only thought of himself as on the side of those who protest power.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, October 31, 2016 What Keeps the F-35 Alive
Imagine if a local business in your town invented a brand new tool that was intended to have an almost magical effect thousands of miles away. However, where the tool was kept and used locally became an area unsafe for children. Children who got near this tool tended to have increased blood pressure and increased stress hormones, lower reading skills, poorer memories, impaired auditory and speech perception...
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, May 24, 2021 What The New Acceptability of the Lab Leak Origin Tells Us About Media Outlets
Have you noticed that a lot of science writers have lately been saying that they were perfectly right a year ago to mock and condemn even considering a lab leak origin for Coronavirus but that now it's perfectly proper to admit that Coronavirus may very well have come from a lab?
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, October 27, 2008 Frank Breaks Taboo on Military Spending
When a Congress member steps forward and courageously articulates a forbidden truth that is absolutely necessary for our survival and well-being (and by "our" I mean our species, not just our nation), he must be praised, rewarded, and defended at all costs, without question or hesitation.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, February 24, 2017 100 Years of Using War to Try to End All War
This April 4th will be 100 years since the U.S. Senate voted to declare war on Germany and 50 since Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the war on Vietnam (49 since he was killed on that speech's first anniversary). Events are being planned to help us try to finally learn some lessons, to move beyond, not just Vietnam, but war.
(20 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 21, 2018 Nobody to Vote For
When I say there is nobody to vote for, I don't just mean the familiar complaint that the candidates may be different shades of evil but are all too evil to support, that the earth's climate does not recover one iota because some even worse policy has been averted, that sadistic bombings and humanitarian bombings actually look identical. I do mean all of that. But I also mean that candidates are campaigning as nothings.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 13, 2017 A Russian Entrepreneur's Perspective
I've been in Moscow some days now and have yet to meet an oligarch (although perhaps they don't identify themselves). I have met an entrepreneur named Andrei Davidovich. He's started several companies since his first in 1998, including a software company, a marketing agency, a publishing company, etc. He says it takes 5 days to create a new company in Russia.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 30, 2018 Support Ocasio-Cortez for Congress Now
Within 30 minutes of my publishing this complaint that peace had vanished from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's website, the following appeared on her website:
SHARE Friday, May 5, 2023 War and Murder Since Vietnam
I'm going to be brief and generalize and give some tentative conclusions in order to fit into 10 minutes what I think happened in Vietnam and what I think are some of the key lessons for peacemaking now from peacemaking at the time of what the Vietnamese call the American War.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 10, 2012 Liberals Cry Out: Tax the Rich! Fund More Wars!
The shout of the Occupy movement, at least in D.C., has been "End the Wars, Tax the Rich!" in that order and in combination. Over half of federal discretionary spending goes to the war machine. We ought to fix that problem first, and then fix the problem that our overlords aren't actually paying their fair share of the taxes.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 17, 2016 Another $11.6 Billion for Obama/Trump Wars? Hell No!
President Obama waited until after the election last week to propose an unpopular idea. He asked Congress for $11.6 billion extra -- outside the huge existing military budget -- for wars. Here's his letter including all the gory details. Please read it yourself when you begin to hope that I'm making up some of what follows.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, July 7, 2017 De-Authorize the Use of Military Force
Last Thursday the U.S. House Appropriations Committee unanimously passed an amendment that would -- if passed by the full Congress -- repeal, after an 8-month delay, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress just after September 11, 2001, and used as a justification for wars ever since.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 9, 2017 Are Governments Useless?
Useless! Useless!
Heavy rain driving
Into the sea.
--Jack Kerouac
SHARE Tuesday, January 15, 2019 Top 10 Reasons Not to Love NATO
The New York Times loves NATO, but should you?
I believe this notion to be propped up by a series of misconceptions that stand in dire need of correction.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 22, 2011 Wars Cannot Be Both Planned and Avoided
Congress held an emergency meeting to defund NPR, and then did nothing as the President spent vastly more money on bombing Libya.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 1, 2009 Impeach Bybee
Impeaching Jay Bybee would not just put Congress back on the map. It would also derail a potentially very lengthy career as a powerful appeals judge for a man whose work was central to facilitating the crimes of the past eight years. And that might help move the criminal prosecutions along as well.
SHARE Wednesday, June 17, 2015 U.S. House Debates and Votes Down Withdrawal from Iraq/Syria
Wednesday afternoon, by a vote of 288-139 with one voting "present" and five not voting (roll call of who voted which way is here) the U.S. House of Representatives voted down a resolution (H.Con.Res.55) that would have required the President to . . .
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 22, 2011 Did Roosevelt's Racism Cause WWII?
That was the argument made in a U.S. bestseller in 2009 written by a WWII historian whose father had raised the US flag on Iwo Jima. And the Roosevelt he had in mind was Teddy, not Franklin.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 1, 2011 "Your Forefathers Would All Have Been Gassed"
I think the staying power of Hitlerian madness is more easily understood when we properly understand that Hitler and the Nazis didn't invent it out of whole cloth but built on a deep tradition that had long dominated European and U.S. culture.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Obama's Press Secretary Explains Rights, Laws, and Lack Thereof
If you missed Tuesday's press conference at the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs got himself into some trouble, and it all started with those two little syllables:
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, January 23, 2012 The State of Obama's 2008 Promises
Obama Version .08 was a horrible, horrible candidate, and yet he made dozens of promises that have been tossed aside, making him now even worse -- unless one chooses to accept as credible the same promises again.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 5, 2017 Un-Trump the Budget
Check out below the list of people who have come together on this!
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, April 10, 2017 Don't Be a United Airlines Passenger
Do not sit still like a United Airlines passenger in a video when an injustice is happening. If the other passengers had simply blocked the aisles, corporate thugs could not have dragged their fellow passenger away. If everyone on board had demanded that the airline offer higher compensation until someone volunteered to take a later flight, rather than being violently "reaccommodated," then it would have done so.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 12, 2017 Love from Russians
On Wednesday, I flew out of a New York airport around which armed soldiers in camouflaged uniforms wandered -- a New York area that had long ago hidden in the hardest to reach corner of New Jersey the monument that Russia gave the United States in sympathy with the horror of September 11, 2001.
SHARE Wednesday, April 29, 2015 A Better Way to Read the First Amendment
Each time the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of plutocracy it is ruling against precedents, common sense, basic decency, and a coherent and plausible reading of the Bill of Rights that reads the various amendments as aimed at strengthening democracy.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, May 23, 2016 Obama is not first president at permanent war
The New York Times recently claimed, and peace advocates repeated, that President Barack Obama will be the first U.S. president to have been at war for two complete four-year terms. It's also become common to refer to the current U.S. war on Afghanistan as the longest U.S. war ever.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 6, 2022 What's Worse Than Risking Nuclear Apocalypse?
What is worse than risking the obliteration of life on Earth through nuclear war and the creation of a nuclear winter? What is more important than protecting the world from the climate collapse on fast-forward that would be a nuclear apocalypse?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, March 7, 2022 Russia's Demands Have Changed
One way to negotiate peace would be for Ukraine to offer to meet all of Russia's demands and, ideally, more, while making demands of its own for reparations and disarmament.
SHARE Tuesday, May 12, 2015 Populist Except for Pentagon
Vanden Heuvel links to six reports or platform statements. Each deals with economics, the public budget, spending and investment priorities. Virtually absent from them all, by some coincidence, is any mention of military spending, despite its taking up a majority of the discretionary spending budget every year.
SHARE Tuesday, June 27, 2017 U.S. War Justification Is in the Eye of the Beholder
Could it be that we need a 12-step program that begins with the recognition of a deeply entrenched problem, minus the 7 steps that amount to relying on a deity to clean up our mess?
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 4, 2018 UVA's Miller Center Loves Killers
The University of Virginia's Miller Center caught flak for appointing Trumpian Marc Short, but has now announced the appointment of John Negroponte, presumably hoping for little resistance since Negroponte's not a Trumpman.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 24, 2018 Make Ben Salmon a Saint
Opponents of Just War Theory should be made saints, because Just War Theory may get us all killed.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 3, 2014 Israel's Secret
Here in Virginia, U.S.A., I'm aware that the native people were murdered, driven out, and moved westward. But what if it had just happened a moment ago, historically speaking? What if my parents had been children or teenagers? What if my grandparents and their generation had conceived and executed the genocide?
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 26, 2015 Our Chance to Aid and Encourage Whistleblowers
We would know much less about what our governments do were it not for those who are part of our governments until something becomes too horrible for their moral threshold, and who see a means available to inform the public. What this fact says about the proportion of governmental activity that is shameful is worth considering.
SHARE Tuesday, December 21, 2021 At Long Last, Ban Weaponized Drones
Former President Barack Obama recently tweeted that the day of a school shooting was the worst day of his presidency. Well, it certainly shouldn't have been a good day, but, seriously, what the filibuster? Was it a bad day because children were killed and he didn't order their killing?
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 6, 2011 Blood in the Streets of Afghanistan
Afghanistan is full of wonderful people and could be a really terrific place to live. But first my government back home in the United States would have to stop murdering civilians over here.
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, February 9, 2009 Building a Bush Memorial
A letter to the editor in my local newspaper, the Charlottesville Daily Progress, has persuaded me to rethink the truly remarkable accomplishments of President George W. Bush and inspired me to join the movement to erect a Bush Memorial on the National Mall.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 7, 2016 Impeach and Prosecute Tony Blair
The Chilcot report's "findings" have virtually all been part of the public record for a decade, and it avoids key pieces of evidence. Its recommendations are essentially to continue using war as a threat and a tool of foreign policy, but to please try not to lie so much, make sure to win over a bit more of the public, and don't promise any positive outcomes given the likelihood of catastrophe.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, September 13, 2010 Wall Street's Mercenaries Ride Donkeys
Reagan announced the robbery but couldn't pull it off. Clinton robbed us blind. Bush Jr. and Obama drove the get-away car, with Obama disguised as a security guard.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 12, 2012 U.S. Wars: Are They Lawful?
Remarks at the biennial general meeting of the War and Law League in San Francisco on Armistice Day 2012.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 18, 2013 It's the Ownership
Workers own and run factories in Cleveland, Atlanta, Washington DC, Amarillo, and many other cities. Labor unions that once opposed worker ownership, including the Steelworkers and several others, now create worker-owned companies.
SHARE Thursday, August 17, 2023 The Kid at Los Alamos Who Gave the Secrets to the Soviet Union
One of the scientists at Los Alamos with Oppenheimer was 18 years old. While Oppenheimer was publicly and falsely accused of spying for the Societ Union, this young man did in fact give many of the most important secrets from Los Alamos to the Soviets, and the U.S. government chose not to prosecute him. And there is a brand-new movie by a two-time Oscar-nominated director about this other guy.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 21, 2017 Russia Conspiracists Claim to Possess Reality
An Associated Press story on Tuesday came with this headline: "Analysis: Reality catching up with Trump on Russia," and began:
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 14, 2017 A Russian Journalist's Perspective
Dmitri Babich has worked as a journalist in Russia since 1989, for newspapers, news agencies, radio, and television. He says that he used to always interview people, while lately people interview him.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 3, 2010 New Heroine Sparks a Movement
Harry Hanbury has a story that any videographer or blogger would love. He created a video of Congresswoman Donna Edwards taking steps to amend the Constitution to restore our democracy following assault by the Supreme Court. A woman you've never heard of named Jessica Sharp saw the video and decided to take action herself.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 3, 2010 The Peace Movement's Progress
The peace movement has made significant progress in the United States since its low point of late 2008.
SHARE Thursday, September 30, 2010 The Book the Pentagon Burned
The Pentagon spent $50,000 of our money to buy up the first edition of "Operation Dark Heart" by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and destroy every copy. The second printing has lots of words blacked out. Wikileaks claims to have a first edition, but hasn't shared it. However, reading the bleeped-through version reveals plenty.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 12, 2015 Film Review: This Changes Everything
I thought the cause of climate destruction was political corruption, but I thought the cause of so little popular resistance was ignorance and denial. Naomi Klein's new film This Changes Everything seems to assume that everyone is aware of the problem. The enemy that the film takes on is the belief that "human nature" is simply greedy and destructive and destined to behave in the way that Western culture behaves toward the nat
SHARE Tuesday, January 17, 2012 Charlottesville, Va., City Council Passes Resolution Opposing War on Iran
The City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia, home of Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and the University of Virginia, passed on Tuesday evening, January 17, 2012, a resolution believed to be a first in the country, opposing the launching of a war on Iran, as well as calling for an end to current ground and drone wars engaged in by the United States and urging Congress and the President of the United States to ...
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, July 3, 2009 A Plan to End the Wars
In my analysis, we should be focusing on three things, which for purposes of brevity and alliteration I will call: Communications, Congress, and Counter recruitment / resistance.
SHARE Friday, January 11, 2019 Trump Declares Himself a National Emergency
War is the most underrated danger, crisis, and moral outrage to be dealt with.
Trump is the most antiwar president the United States has seen in decades.
As a dedicated peace activist, I believe Trump needs to be removed from office immediately.
SHARE Sunday, June 28, 2020 Time for Charlottesville to Act on Militarized Policing
The City of Charlottesville is dragging up the rear in the current winds of change, is stalling on moving its war monuments, is failing to move on divesting its retirement fund from weapons and fossil fuels, and is tip-toeing around prevaricating Chief of Police Dr. RaShall M. Brackney.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, July 14, 2014 Counting the Presidents' Bodies
What if you graded presidents, not on personality or style or popularity, but on how many deaths they caused or prevented?
SHARE Friday, February 23, 2018 I'd Elect the People on My Facebook Page Over Any Weapons-Funded Hack
I asked my Facebook page which high school teacher they'd least like to have had a gun in their desk. Go read their answers.
I'd elect those people over any recent president or any current member of Congress.
SHARE Saturday, July 22, 2023 Facing Factsenheimer
Some of the lies the scientists were told have been forgotten. Some we are still told today, these many decades after their exposure. So, lets' face up to a few facts.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, July 7, 2017 122 Nations Create Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons
On Friday the United Nations concluded the creation of the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty in over 20 years, and the first treaty ever to ban all nuclear weapons. While 122 nations voted yes, the Netherlands voted no, Singapore abstained, and numerous nations didn't show up at all.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 20, 2015 Public Didn't See Last Two World Wars Coming Either
Books about how World War I started, and to a lesser degree how World War II started, have tended in recent years to explain that these wars didn't actually come as a surprise, because top government officials saw them coming for years. But these revised histories admit that the general public was pretty much clueless and shocked.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 25, 2016 Slavery Was Abolished
I recently debated a pro-war professor on the topic "Is war ever necessary?" (video). I argued for abolishing war. And because people like to see successes before doing something, no matter how indisputably possible that thing is, I gave examples of other institutions that have been abolished in the past. One might include such practices as human sacrifice, polygamy, cannibalism, trial by ordeal, blood feuds, dueling, or ...
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, April 3, 2017 U.S. Out of Korea
My biggest concern is not the embarrassment of a U.S. public afraid of the tiny impoverished nation of North Korea. If that embarrassed me, how would I survive what U.S. culture makes of ISIS, or -- for that matter -- the election of Donald Trump? My biggest concern is that U.S. war profiteers may end up using Korea to get us all killed.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 13, 2018 Making the World Great for the First Time
In my latest book, Curing Exceptionalism, I look at how the United States compares with other countries, how it thinks about that, what harm this thinking does, and how to think differently. In the first of those four sections, I try to find some measure by which the United States actually is the greatest, and I fail.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, November 11, 2016 A Good Time to Review Bush's War Crimes
I'll be speaking at the upcoming Iraq Tribunal about war lies of 2002-2003 vintage. I'm nostalgic for the days when presidents had to lie to Congress and the public and obtain some modicum of support before bombing a foreign country.
SHARE Tuesday, November 7, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Nick Buxton on Climate Chaos and Militarism
This week on Talk Nation Radio: Climate chaos and militarism. We're joined by Nick Buxton, who is the co-editor of an important book called The Secure and the Dispossessed - How the military and corporations are seeking to shape a climate-changed world. Nick Buxton is a communications consultant, working as a publications editor and supporting online learning and support of activist scholar communities.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 14, 2018 "I Survived Because . . ."
"I survived because I was walking to a building that was behind a small hill that faced downtown. I was standing in such a way that the building was to my right and the stone garden was to my left. . . .
SHARE Monday, May 11, 2020 Antiwar Congressional Candidates 2020
In September 2018, I wrote an article about four women who were running for Congress in four separate districts, each speaking against wars and militarism in highly unusual ways. They later all won their elections, joined together, and called themselves a squad. Since taking office, they've all been far superior to the average Congress member, and often been real standouts.
SHARE Monday, August 22, 2022 Neither Dante Nor Caesar Will Save Us
Dante wrote bizarre and powerful poetry about Hell and Heaven that united Italians around a non-Latin language and the Western world around various images and misquotations regarding who's destined for which circle.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, January 16, 2012 Corporate Personhood Cannot Withstand Organized Persons
There are many schemes now for undoing the doctrines under which corporations claim constitutional rights and bribery is deemed constitutionally protected "speech."
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 4, 2012 The Betrayal of the Nobel Peace Prize
Alfred Nobel's will, written in 1895, left funding for a prize to be awarded to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
SHARE Wednesday, July 4, 2018 Monbiot's New Story Uncut and Unrated
I'm going to praise the heck out of yet another terrific book I've just read while yet again exclaiming (into a deep empty echoing canyon?) my bewilderment and outrage at the glaring omission it makes -- the same one as all the other books.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Al Gore Comments on "Do Not Concede" Letter to Obama
Former Vice President, and the man elected president in November 2000, Al Gore was asked on the radio this morning about a letter that Gore Vidal and many others have sent to presidential candidate Barack Obama urging him not to concede a stolen election.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 18, 2014 A Brief History of Iraq for Westerners
Iraq was saved from ignorant subhuman barbarism by a gentlewoman named Gertrude at the time that the civilized nations of the world were, in a quite advanced and sophisticated manner, slaughtering their young men in a project now called the First World War.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 21, 2015 Not Very Funny
One of my favorite things that Mark Twain didn't really say but definitely should have said was "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it." He left out the possibility of imbeciles who are putting us on.
SHARE Friday, May 4, 2018 If Bobby Kennedy Had Lived
Fifty years ago, Bobby Kennedy was about to win the Democratic presidential primary in Indiana. He would soon lose in Oregon and in a few weeks win in California, practically clinching the White House, and be murdered the same night. The film RFK Must Dieand book Who Killed Bobby? leave little doubt that the CIA killed him. And of course there is no doubt that many have always suspected as much, which has had a damaging effect
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 26, 2014 Mapping Militarism
World Beyond War has created a set of online interactive maps to help us all see where and how war and preparations for war exist in the world today.
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, April 19, 2019 The 20 Surest Paths to Impeachment
Letting a ruler get away with power grabs and abuses guarantees that worse will come, from him or from his successors. This is the lesson of the failure to impeach recent U.S. presidents.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 27, 2019 This Is Really Not a Drill
On Wednesday, the first 10 of the 20 Democrats whom the corporate media is permitting into what they call debates were asked what the greatest threat to the United States is.
SHARE Tuesday, January 24, 2023 Winston Churchill Was a Monster
Churchill was a proud, unrepentant, lifelong supporter of racism, colonialism, genocide, militarism, chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, and general cruelty, and he was shamelessly arrogant about all of it.
SHARE Sunday, August 27, 2023 The New York Times Tries to Lie About Ukraine Without Lying
I'm pretty sure I usually read the New York Times differently from how some people read it. I read it looking for two things: the insinuations and the independent evidence.
SHARE Tuesday, August 14, 2018 Ilhan Omar for Peace
Ilhan Omar is the second person this year to win a Democratic Party nomination for Congress in a Democratic Party district with a platform advocating peace in a way not seen inside the Beltway. The first was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York City, whose advocacy for peace I wrote about. Ilhan Omar has just won the nomination from Minnesota's Fifth District.
SHARE Wednesday, May 20, 2020 Video of Building the Peace Movement Teach-In
Host: David Swanson, Executive Director of World BEYOND War Speakers: Leonardo Flores, Latin America Campaign Coordinator CODEPINK Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence Andy Shallal, Busboys and Poets Rich Whitney, Green Party Peace Action Committee Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK
(12 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 11, 2009 Inventing the Terrorist Threat
Virginia is for lovers, but there's a terrorist behind every dogwood. Or so you might gather from the "2009 Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment" by the "Commonwealth of Virginia Department of State Police Virginia Fusion Center" which is part federal and therefore not Virginian and part private and therefore not commonwealth.
SHARE Friday, September 23, 2022 Riotsville
In the late 1960s, the U.S. military built a fake town called Riotsville (or a fake "inner city" actually) on the Fort Belvoir base in Virginia, and then another at Fort Gordon in Georgia "- the same state where the Atlanta police are now working on the construction of an enlarged, updated, high-tech Riotsville commonly called "Cop City."
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 13, 2008 What If Labor Opposed War?
I think the peace movement and every justice movement in the United States should simply overwhelm Congress members during the next two months with one and only one demand.
SHARE Wednesday, September 30, 2009 New York Times Hypes Iran Threat By Pretending Not To
The New York Times doesn't mention the pivotal role it played in lying us into a war in Iraq, but it doesn't have to. Everybody knows. On Wednesday, the Times put this article on its front page, and I highly recommend it as an ideal liner for bird cages:
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, February 4, 2022 Smedley Butler Wasn't Kidding
The thing is, Smedley meant it. He'd spent decades roving the world for the U.S. government, overthrowing democracies, propping up dictators, slaughtering and enslaving the local people.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 16, 2014 A Different War-Is-Good-For-Us Argument
It seems like we just got through dealing with the argument that war is good for us because it brings peace. And along comes a very different twist, combined with some interesting insights.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 15, 2017 Can the Climate Survive Adherence to War and Partisanship?
For the past decade, the standard procedure for big coalition rallies and marches in Washington D.C. has been to gather together organizations representing labor, the environment, women's rights, anti-racism, anti-bigotry of all sorts, and a wide array of liberal causes, including demands to fund this, that, and the other, and to halt the concentration of wealth.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 5, 2019 A Green New PayGo Shutdown
"She'll cut your head off." That's Nancy Pelosi's daughter's praise for her mother.
I guess you're supposed to imagine it always being somebody else's head and to really hate all those somebody elses.
But then, what is PayGo? This looks like a deal aiming a big ole Pentagon bone saw at so many heads that our powers of hatred are likely to fall far short.
(36 comments) SHARE Monday, March 4, 2019 Let's Try to Elect Bernie Sanders
About four months ago, I organized over 100 scholars, intellectuals, and activists to publish an open letter to Senator Bernie Sanders, which was then signed by over 10,000 more people, several of whom volunteered to deliver it to Senator Sanders. So, we know he received it.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 16, 2012 It's Us or the Nukes
The nukes have got to go, or we do. This planet's not big enough for both.
SHARE Monday, August 24, 2015 The Rise of the Permanent Prisoners of War
If someone has had the good fortune not to encounter the world of U.S. police and prisons, and the misfortune to learn about the world from U.S. schools, entertainment, and "news" media, a great place to start understanding one of the worst self-inflicted tragedies of our era would be with James Kilgore's short new book, Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time ...
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 21, 2010 Election Guide for Election Haters
The easiest way to figure this out is to look at who the DCCC is funding, and start helping everyone else.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 26, 2018 2018 Peace Prize Awarded to David Swanson
At the Veterans For Peace Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, on August 26, 2018, the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation awarded its 2018 Peace Prize to David Swanson, director of World BEYOND War.
SHARE Thursday, May 16, 2019 Charlottesville to Vote 6/3 to Divest from Weapons, Fossil Fuels
At its Monday, May 6, 2019, meeting, and through subsequent discussions, Charlottesville City Council decided that it would vote on a resolution on June 3rd to divest its general operating fund from weapons and fossil fuels.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 20, 2020 HR 6415: The Dumbest Idea in Congress
I know it's stiff competition, but hear me out. What would be the dumbest thing Congress could do in this moment? I mean, other than allowing Trump to remain in office? Surely it would be HR 6415.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 21, 2020 324 Congress Members Who Should Permanently Quarantine
The U.S. House of Misrepresentatives on Tuesday voted 324 to 93 (with 13 not voting) to defeat a proposal to move a mere 10% of military spending to human, environmental, and health needs. The 324 people who voted the wrong way on this really should never show their faces in public again. Our society ought to shame them so deeply that they pick up and move to a country with healthcare and retirement and clean energy and ...
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Sex, Halliburton, and the State Department
Tracy Barker was sexually assaulted by Halliburton employees and - in one instance - by a U.S. State Department employee in Basra, Iraq. The State Department employee has confessed to part of what Barker alleges, but remains at the State Department, and has never been charged with any crime.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 6, 2015 Hiroshima-Nagasaki: 70-Year Nuclear Explosions Not Done Yet
This August 6th and 9th millions of people will mark the 70th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in those cities and at events around the world.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, October 2, 2015 Hillary Offers Syria a Libyan-Iraqi-Style Paradise
Americans may find Syria a bit confusing. David Petraeus, sainted hero, has proposed arming al Qaeda, organized devil. Vladimir Putin, reincarnated Hitler, is bombing either ISIS or al Qaeda or their friendly democratic allies, but he shouldn't be because he's against overthrowing the Syrian government, also run by Hitler living under the name Assad. Hillary Clinton, liberal socialist, wants to create a no-fly zone...
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 14, 2015 U.S. Government Decides Voting Is Less Important Than a Military Draft
I know what you're thinking. There is no draft. There hasn't been a draft in decades. They'd let entire Central American nations immigrate, pay recruits six-figure salaries, and let robots fly the drones before they'd create a draft. Crackpot Congress members only bring up a draft as a supposed bank-shot maneuver for ending all the damn wars. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Your government has nonetheless decided ...
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 24, 2017 War vs Cute Animals
Please watch this video if you love cute animals or peace or both:
SHARE Sunday, June 28, 2020 Hey Congress, Move the Money
The past month's activism has changed a great deal. One thing it's helped with is brushing aside the tired old argument over whether government should be big or small. In its place we have the much more useful argument over whether government should prioritize force and punishment, or focus on services and assistance.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 13, 2012 Where Does War Come From?
Most members of our species that have lived on this earth have never known war.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 4, 2015 Ruminations of an Afghan Girl Burning to Death in a Hospital Bed
Life is a very jumbled mixture. The pain of it, if you're awake and thinking, brings into your mind the happiest moments you can remember and transforms them into agony unless you resist bitterness with every drop of strength you have left, if not more. Physical pain makes clear-thinking and generous thinking more difficult, until death appears in front of you, and then the physical pain is as nothing.
SHARE Saturday, June 11, 2016 "Modern Warfare Destroys Your Brain" in More Ways Than One
The most likely way to die in a U.S. war, by far, is to live in the country that the United States is attacking. But the most likely way in which a U.S. participant in a war will die is by suicide.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 26, 2018 Which Is More Occupied, Crimea or Afghanistan?
According to Donald Trump, the one allied victor of World War II not still occupying Germany has made Germany its slave. But according to the great anti-Trump Resistance in the United States, the nation that openly bragged about installing Boris Yeltsin as president of Russia (the same Yeltsin who subsequently installed Vladimir Putin) has been Pearl-Harbor-attacked by the same Putin via a computer or Facebook or ...
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 26, 2020 Two-Thirds of Presidential Debate Should Be About Militarism
Over half of the money that Congress decides what to do with every year is for wars and war preparations, year after year.
When you add in police and prisons, and the militarization of police and prisons and of borders and airports and the Veterans Administration, you're talking about two-thirds of the money.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 3, 2020 The U.S. Military Should Stop Training Police and Stick to Slaughtering Innocent Foreigners
The U.S. Military and the National Guard and other war-making outfits should clear out of the streets of the United States, get on some airplanes, and head off to properly murder lots of men, women, and children very far away. It's simply inappropriate to kill people in this enlightened land where we've figured out that lives all matter.
SHARE Wednesday, February 9, 2022 Pop-Morality Is Immoral
I wouldn't be surprised if some philosophy professors think that popularizing books like this make their work seem dumb. I don't disagree. I just think very little effort is needed in that regard. Worse than dumb, I think such books, just like the more academic versions, are lacking in morality.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 10, 2007 War Opposition Made Easy
The new film "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" makes arguing against wars easy. If you get into a debate about war, just make the points made so clearly in this film, or - better yet - convince a war supporter to watch the film.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 20, 2016 Why the Deafening Silence on Cutting the Military Budget?
Bernie Sanders' common sense proposals for dealing with universal health care, college tuition, restoring the infrastructure, confronting poverty and more have encountered predictable scorn from "fiscally responsible" corporatists.
SHARE Monday, May 25, 2020 Wait, What If War Isn't Humanitarian?
Dan Kovalik's new book, No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using "Humanitarian" Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests which I am adding to my list of books you should read on why war should be abolished (see below) makes a powerful case that humanitarian war no more exists than philanthropic child abuse or benevolent torture.
SHARE Friday, October 8, 2021 Nobel Committee Gets Peace Prize Wrong Yet Again
The Nobel Committee has yet again awarded a peace prize that violates the will of Alfred Nobel and the purpose for which the prize was created, selecting recipients who blatantly are not "the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses."
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 28, 2015 Is War Beautiful?
"War Is Beautiful" is the ironic title of a beautiful new book of photographs. The subtitle is "The New York Times Pictorial Guide to the Glamour of Armed Conflict." There's an asterisk after those words, and it leads to these: "(In which the author explains why he no longer reads The New York Times)."
SHARE Monday, October 2, 2023 #NoWar2023 Debate: Is War in Ukraine Justified?
David Swanson argued that Russia and Ukraine both had options better than war during World BEYOND War's annual global conference, #NoWar2023: Nonviolent Resistance to Militarism.
SHARE Sunday, October 19, 2014 Shadow Facts About Shadow Government
We live in an age in which the most important facts are not seriously disputed and also not seriously known or responded to.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 1, 2021 Save Tom Friedman's Mind: Restore Armistice Day
When the New York Times is paying Thomas Friedman many thousands of dollars to wonder whether Russia or China would help the United States if space aliens attack it, a few conclusions can be drawn.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 17, 2018 Murder Incorporated
Murder Incorporated is a three-book series by Mumia Abu Jamal and Stephen Vittoria, which I can highly recommend based on the first book. The other two are not out yet.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 24, 2020 How Ya Gonna Pay For It? Stop Giving Money to Israel.
Did you know that the U.S. government has done something odd with your tax dollars? The ones you get so furious and indignant about when they're used to feed anybody who's hungry? It has given over 280 billion of those dollars to the government of Israel (not counting classified hush-hush super-secret amounts).
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 28, 2012 Virginia Says No to Lawless Imprisonment
Good things do come out of the Virginia state legislature. That normally reprehensible body has just stood up to the federal outrage that has come to be known as the NDAA.
SHARE Sunday, April 19, 2015 And the Slow Parade of Fears
Imagine a prison experiment like the famous one at Stanford where you give some students power over others and wait for cruelty to begin. Only imagine that whenever you use Muslim students you provide each guard and prisoner with tasers, grenades, and automatic assault rifles. A conclusion that Muslims are more violent would be ridiculous. But if you watch a political talk show tomorrow morning, that's what they'll tell you.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 4, 2017 People Don't Kill People, Americans Kill People
Yes, of course, every day that Congress goes on refusing to ban guns is more blood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. It's immoral, disgraceful, embarrassing, and in large part a function of financial corruption. But it's also in part a government operating within a culture of violence -- albeit one that the same government plays a huge role in creating.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 25, 2018 Impeachment Safety 101
As with any dangerous tool, impeachment should be used with proper safety precautions. Among these should be taking care not to increase the chance of a nuclear war while trying to start an impeachment.
SHARE Saturday, May 4, 2019 Fallujah Forgotten
I don't know if most people in the United States ever knew what Fallujah meant. It's hard to believe the U.S. military would still exist if they did. But certainly it has been largely forgotten a problem that could be remedied if everyone picks up a copy of The Sacking of Fallujah: A People's History, by Ross Caputi (a U.S. veteran of one of the sieges of Fallujah), Richard Hill, and Donna Mulhearn.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, July 20, 2020 Charlottesville Va. Bans Militarized Policing - Your City Can Too
By unanimous vote, the City Council of Charlottesville, Va., on Monday evening voted to ban militarized policing. Specifically, the City Council resolved that "the Charlottesville Police Department shall not acquire weaponry from the United States armed forces," and "shall not receive military-style or 'warrior' training by the United States armed forces, a foreign military or police, or any private company."
(16 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 16, 2015 Ukraine and the Apocalyptic Risk of Propagandized Ignorance
U.S.-funded groups organized a Ukrainian opposition, funded a new TV channel, and promoted regime change. The U.S. State Department spent some $5 billion. The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State who handpicked the new leaders, openly brought cookies to protesters. When those protesters violently overthrew the government in February 2014, the United States immediately declared the coup government legitimate. That new government b
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 2, 2016 Thomas Friedman Says Hillary's Lies No Big Deal
Thomas "suck on this" Friedman, as FAIR points out, has blurted out his reasons for not talking about Hillary. It turns out that she lies. But we should ignore those lies because they're no big deal. Here's Suckon in his own words:
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 15, 2017 Which Washington Crimes Matter Most?
Michael Flynn participated in mass murder and destruction in Afghanistan and Iraq, advocated for torture, and manufactured false cases for war against Iran. He and anyone who appointed him to office and kept him there should be removed from and disqualified for public service. (Though I still appreciate his blurting out the obvious regarding the counterproductive results of drone murders.)
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 2, 2007 Leading Americans Ask U.S. Military to Refuse to Attack Iran
Country music legend Willie Nelson, literary icon Gore Vidal, Gold Star Mother Cindy Sheehan, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega, author and radio host Thom Hartmann, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Rabbi Steven Jacobs, and dozens of other prominent Americans have signed a letter asking the Joint Chiefs
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, March 23, 2012 The Shifting Strategies of Empire
President Obama this week declared the war on Iraq to be an honorable success that has given us a brighter future. Are you fired up? Ready to go?
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 11, 2015 Where are we going and why are we in Hillary's hand basket?
Hillary Clinton's favorite "Hitler" these days is Putin, with Assad in close second. Her days of giggling triumphantly over the murder of Gadaffi may be behind her. And one of her favorite ways of demonizing Putin has been denouncing his opposition to gay rights. Yet Hillary, along with Rick Santorum, was a supporter of proposed legislation that might have legalized the recently hyped refusal of a government employee in Kentuc
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 6, 2009 Peace Activists Arrested at White House
On Monday, Oct. 5, 2009, just after noon, about 60 activists were arrested at the White House for failing to obey a police order. The nonviolent “Civil Resistance†action was the largest such antiwar demonstration at this particular site, since President Barack Obama took office.
SHARE Wednesday, September 12, 2012 The Environmental Antiwar Movement
Events in South Korea are putting U.S. and international environmental groups into coalition with antiwar groups, and in rare opposition to one of the most environmentally destructive forces on earth: the military industrial complex.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 23, 2019 The Shutdown Government Is Busy Figuring Out New Ways to Recruit Soldiers
Shutdown or no shutdown, not a single war, base-construction project, or war ship has been halted in its course, and the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service released its "interim report" on Wednesday.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, March 6, 2023 How Many Strangers Are At the Gate?
When learning to shoot at paper targets, he had concerns about killing actual people. He recounts being given the advice that if he could look at those he would kill as anything other than human he would have no problems.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 7, 2016 #NoWar2016 Events Planned for Washington, D.C.
A major conference presenting alternatives to permanent war has been planned for September 23-25 at American University in Washington, D.C.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 13, 2010 Bush Think Tank: How's the Thinking Going?
A peaceful, nonviolent march and rally will coincide with and protest the George W. Bush Presidential Center groundbreaking in Dallas on November 16, 2010.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 18, 2018 Three Antiwar Congress Members
When asked "Do you want to divert the DOD budget into social services?" Tlaib replied:
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 8, 2016 The Trumpillary War Machine Is Bad News
Lauer and vets asked Trumpillary about caring for veterans, all taking it as unquestionable that more veterans must be produced through more wars. Trump even said that he'd let immigrants remain in the United States if they would "serve" . . . not his dinner apparently, but his war machine, Hillary's war machine, NBC's war machine, Comcast's war machine, the war machine of people who've watched this stuff for 15 years...
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 13, 2008 Liz Holtzman for Senate
New York state could soon be represented in the U.S. Senate by a woman with more respect for and understanding of democratic representation, the Constitution, and the rule of law than we've grown accustomed to finding in Washington, D.C., a woman who has done more to oppose the abuses of power of the Bush administration than have most current members of the House or Senate.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 8, 2009 Rep. Obey Joins Us Idiot Liberals
Congressman David Obey (D., Wis.) is the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. He's in charge of spending our money. And until this week, he has always maintained that spending hundreds of billions of our dollars on wars was something he just had no choice about.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 10, 2016 Guess Where Huge Funds for Fighting Climate Change Are Being Wasted
In the United States it's not actually difficult to find significant funding with which to research new and innovative -- not to say bizarre and absurd -- pursuits, as long as they form part of an overall project of mass murder.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 24, 2016 Turn the Pentagon into a Hospital
The United States government recently gave more than a million dollars to the family of one victim it had killed in one of its wars. The victim happened to be Italian. If you were to find all the Iraqi families with any surviving members who had loved ones killed by the United States it might be a million families. A million times a million dollars would be enough to treat those Iraqis in this respect as if they were Europeans
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, November 4, 2016 What Could Unite a Larger Peace Movement? Oh, This!
In a time of division and disagreement, when people who all agree on something important sometimes spend more time bickering with each other than working on their collective cause, is it possible to craft an agenda that brings them together and adds to their numbers?
It turns out, somewhat to my surprise, the answer is yes.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 16, 2017 Understanding Robert E. Lee Supporters
Those of us who consider it disgraceful to have a giant statue of Robert E. Lee on his horse in a park in the middle of Charlottesville, and another of Stonewall Jackson for that matter, should try to understand those who think removing one of these statues is an outrage.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, November 20, 2020 People in 187 Countries Sign Pledge to Work for End of War
The weapons dealers are global. The U.S. bases are global. The peace movement must be global too. Already we're in more countries than U.S. troops are. But we need far greater numbers. Let's build this!
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 13, 2013 People and Peace Over Plutocracy
Several years ago a bunch of peace activists were eating in a restaurant in Crawford, Texas, and we noticed George W. Bush.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 7, 2009 Baucus v. Democracy
I can't recall a better corporate news video segment in at least the past decade than the story that Ed Schultz just aired on MSNBC in which he interviews Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and Senator Debbie Stabenow on the topic of healthcare reform.
SHARE Thursday, October 27, 2016 Public vs. Media on War
A new poll from an unlikely source suggests that the U.S. public and the U.S. media have very little in common when it comes to matters of war and peace.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 12, 2018 Canada vs. the Rule of Law
The Indigenous children removed from their families in Canada were forced into "schools" where over 40% and likely over 50% of them quickly died, from disease, starvation, torture, rape, suicide, and physical and mental abuse. Of those forced into Dachau by the Nazis, 36% died, Buchenwald 19%, Mauthausen 58%. The Canadian "schools" employed a list of torture techniques that could make a CIA agent drool with envy.
SHARE Monday, June 24, 2019 Protecting Children from Police
Donald E. McInnis's book, She's So Cold, is painful to read. McInnis was the defense attorney for one of three boys falsely accused of killing one of the boys' sister. Much of the book is recreation of police interrogations that were videotaped, and of a court hearing.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 12, 2007 Land of Enchantment and Impeachment
There is a decent chance that within the next month or two the New Mexico State Legislature will ask the U.S. House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, March 18, 2013 Iraq War Among World's Worst Events
U.S. deaths in Iraq since 2003 have been 0.3% of the dead, even if they've taken up the vast majority of the news coverage, preventing U.S. news consumers from understanding the extent of Iraqi suffering.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 30, 2013 An Anti-War Blockbuster
Starting in June, a remarkable anti-war / pro-journalism film will be showing -- even more remarkably -- in big mainstream movie theaters.
SHARE Thursday, January 22, 2015 Militarism in the Air We Breathe
If there is a group of Americans to whom Iraqis struggling with the health effects of depleted uranium, cluster bombs, white phosphorous, and all the various poisons of war can relate, it might be the mostly black and largely poor residents of Gibsland, in northern Louisiana.
(19 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 11, 2015 Bernie Drones and Bernie Volunteers
The "senior digital organizer" of Bernie Sanders for President volunteers Aidan King, has this to say:
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 10, 2017 Sun Tzu: The Ass of War
Sun Tzu, whose book, The Art of War, was written some 2,500 years ago during a period of constant war, and popularized in the West some 100 years ago (just in time for industrialized warfare), is the leading example of what's wrong with digging up ancient platitudes as guides for action today in the areas of war and peace.
SHARE Friday, April 3, 2020 A Department of Actual Defense in a Time of Coronavirus
A government agency aimed at actually defending people from actual dangers would cease activities that are counter-productive, that cause major environmental and climate destruction, and that consume resources that could be put to good use. Militarism meets all of those criteria.
SHARE Thursday, January 19, 2023 Stopping Fascism Beforehand
There are a lot of reasons for a progressive caring person not to be focused on the growing threat of fascism in the United States.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, November 10, 2014 No to Republibama Government
A case can be made that democracy worked in this month's U.S. midterm elections, while representative democracy failed miserably.
SHARE Wednesday, May 22, 2019 Fools' Errands
Albion Winegar Tourge'e may be best known now, though not in his lifetime, as the lead attorney in the Plessy v. Ferguson case, which was a set-up, a staged incident, with the cooperation even of the railroad company, to get a man arrested for sitting in the wrong car, take the matter to court, and end segregation on trains except that it backfired horribly and legalized apartheid for over 50 years.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 8, 2021 The Nuclear Danger Gone?
You can talk with perfectly intelligent, educated, well-rounded people in the United States who don't happen to work on trying to save the world from war (this is one of the dangers of relaxing your social distancing, that you run into these people), and when you raise the topic of war they'll sometimes mention how there used to be a Cold War and a danger of nuclear apocalypse "back in the 80s."
SHARE Sunday, January 15, 2023 Video: The Monroe Doctrine at 200 and What to Replace it With
In this recording of a webinar from January 14, 2023, David Swanson discussed his forthcoming book The Monroe Doctrine at 200 and What to Replace it With. See the 26:24 point in the video.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 21, 2014 Strongest Antiwar Statement Yet from a Congressional Candidate
"We need to get back to the Constitution on the issue of war, and I will never authorize the executive to use force when there is no direct or imminent threat to our national security here on our soil."
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 26, 2015 A Civilian Is A Combatant Is A Civilian Is A Combatant
What happens when a bunch of lawyers intent on distinguishing combatants from civilians discover, by interviewing hundreds of civilians, that it cannot be done?
SHARE Thursday, April 23, 2020 Unsolicited Advice on Terrorism to UVa Basketball Player Austin Katstra
First of all, thanks for your terrific work on the greatest team ever which I think we are all safe in assuming would have repeated last year's championship this year if the season hadn't been shut down. Maybe I'm biased. The point is I'm a fan and an alumnus who found very disturbing an article titled "Virginia's Austin Katstra lays the foundation for a career in counterterrorism."
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, July 11, 2011 Going Neutral on Obama? Not on a Moving Train!
This week has seen an inordinate number of realizations that the Democrats are as bad as or worse than the Republicans. And what has the response been?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, August 13, 2012 NBC's Celebrity Warriors: "They barely survived the first week!"
If you sat through the two-hour debut of NBC's "Stars Earn Stripes" on Monday, you heard the promotion for next week's show: "They barely survived the first week!" And you thought to yourself: "Uh, no, that was me."
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 29, 2015 Bern the Feel
If you have to obsess over a political candidate who's ocassionally allowed on television, please do so with Ted Rall's book on Bernie.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, December 5, 2016 New Rogue Anti-Russia Committee Created in "Intelligence" Act
I don't know why we didn't pick playing with live electrical wires and call that "intelligence" instead of the stuff we do. I think I'll stick with calling what the U.S. government does "counter-intelligence." So, here's the latest from the counter-intelligence community.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 22, 2013 Ending One War, Ending All Wars
We have it in our power to reject the next war and the next war and the next war and make John Kerry the last man to have tried to sell us a dead idea.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, August 22, 2014 Demand Swells for Straight Answers on Plane in Ukraine
A long list of prominent individuals has signed, a number of organizations will be promoting next week, and you can be one of the first to sign right now, a petition titled "Call For Independent Inquiry of the Airplane Crash in Ukraine and its Catastrophic Aftermath."
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 22, 2019 The New York Times Is Scared of Peace
The New York Times and the people it gives voice to are very worried that Donald Trump may be too much in favor of peace in Korea, more in favor of peace than of disarming North Korea prior to peace a sure recipe, of course, for never arriving at peace.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 8, 2009 Abandoning Torture But What About War?
If we can move beyond torture, do we not have a responsibility also to think for a moment about the obvious fact that torture is not the cruelest thing we do? Torture offends us, in part, because the torturer is not at risk, but neither are most pilots dropping bombs.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 22, 2017 Gainesville Bans Torches, Charlottesville Allows Guns
Here's a list of items banned from an event in Gainesville, Florida, with hatemonger Richard Spencer. It includes all conceivable weapons, and even open flames of any kind.
SHARE Monday, September 10, 2018 Legalizing Peace Is Far from Simple
This question will be taken up by many talented speakers and workshop facilitators at #NoWar2018 later this month in Toronto. The conference will focus on replacing mass killing with nonviolent prevention and resolution of disputes. Participants can be expected to agree on that much and little else.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 25, 2010 Why Leahy Is Afraid to Subpoena Yoo
We're about to witness the pretense of war lawyer hearings without the war lawyers (commonly known as torture lawyers by those willing to ignore their role in "legalizing" aggressive war). This may highlight for many observers the little-known fact that Congress no longer has the power of subpoena.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, January 29, 2018 What is being done versus what should be done with prisons
The United States is a global leader in putting people in cages (#1 in prisoners, second in prisoners per capita to the Seychelles, where the United Nations locks up "pirates," and whose whole population is a fraction of the U.S. prison population). The U.S. is also in the top 10 for state executions.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 27, 2014 Peace Philosophy and Public Life
Can we imagine nations with anti-terrorism policies? To do so, we will have to stop assuming we already have them. During the Cold War, the "balance of terror" was perfectly respectable. "Shock and awe" is a terrorist argument. Drone aircraft buzzing over villages are unmanned terrorists. What would a non-terrorist anti-terrorist policy look like?
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 21, 2014 Public Says No to Silencing Prisoners' Speech
I would not have guessed that people cared so much and so well about U.S. prisoners. The Governor of Pennsylvania is expected to sign into law a dangerous precedent that we all need to speak out against and put a quick stop to.
SHARE Wednesday, October 26, 2016 The U.S. National Bird Is Now a Drone
Officially, of course, the national bird of the United States is that half-a-peace-sign that Philadelphia sports fans like to hold up at opposing teams. But unofficially, the film National Bird has it right: the national bird is a killer drone.
SHARE Friday, January 6, 2006 Forum with Congressmen Moran and Murtha Packs Hall, 500 Turned Away
A town hall forum hosted by Congressman Jim Moran and featuring Congressman Jack Murtha packed a large room in Arlington, Va., Thursday evening, and filled an overflow room, and had to turn away another 500 people.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, December 4, 2015 Do Mass Killings Bother You?
We now know this. A young man who had successfully killed on a large scale went to his religious leader with doubts and was told that mass killing was part of God's plan. The young man continued killing until he had participated in killing sprees that took 1,626 lives -- men, women, and children.
SHARE Monday, May 31, 2021 Malcolm Gladwell Claims Satan Won WWII But Jesus Does Drone Strikes
I wish I were joking, even a little. Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Bomber Mafia, maintains that Haywood Hansell was essentially Jesus tempted by the Devil when he refused to burn Japanese cities to the ground.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 11, 2007 Kucinich Says He's Preparing 50-Page Bush Articles of Impeachment
"On the way over here, I was reading a 50-page document that relates to Articles of Impeachment for the President of the United States," Kucinich said to a standing ovation. "And I want you to know that I'm actually preparing this document for submission to the House."
SHARE Tuesday, November 14, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: War Stories
The late Eduardo Galeano's forthcoming book, Hunter of Stories, has five or ten sentences on each page -- each page a tiny story, their combination engaging and powerful. Galeano includes the story of a war resister who chose to die rather than kill, and that of an Iraqi who foretold and pre-grieved the 2003 looting of the National Museum,...
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 18, 2022 UK Pushes Mountain Destruction on Montenegro as Green Policy
British Ambassador to Montenegro Karen Maddox has now stepped in to fend off the continuation of many centuries of peaceful and sustainable pastoral living on Sinjajevina.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 30, 2017 What I Said at the Peace Hub of the Climate March
Most countries on earth have the U.S. military in them.
Most countries on earth burn less fossil fuel than does the U.S. military.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 24, 2020 Speaking of Things That Should Be Torn Down
I lean more toward moving offensive monuments out of central squares and providing context and explanation in less prominent locations, as well as favoring the creation of numerous non-offensive public artworks. But if you're going to tear anything down (or blast anything into outerspace), shouldn't the bust of Wernher von Braun in Huntsville, Alabama, be considered for inclusion on the list?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 17, 2021 Goodbye to an AUMF
With the U.S. House voting and the U.S. Senate promising to vote on repealing an AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force) from 2002 (essentially a sort of weasely pseudo-permission for President George W. Bush to decide on his own whether to attack and destroy Iraq in violation of the UN Charter and Kellogg-Briand Pact, among other laws), we could end up saying good-bye to a shameful piece of legislation.
SHARE Tuesday, January 17, 2023 The Monroe Doctrine Is 200 and Should Not Reach 201
The Monroe Doctrine was and is a justification for actions, some good, some indifferent, but the overwhelming bulk reprehensible. The Monroe Doctrine remains in place, both explicitly and dressed up in novel language. Additional doctrines have been built on its foundations. Here are the words of the Monroe Doctrine, as carefully selected from President James Monroe's State of the Union Address 200 years ago on December 2, 1823
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, March 14, 2011 War Is Illegal - Even in Libya
It's a simple point, but an important one, and one that gets overlooked.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 1, 2014 Mayor From Okinawa to Bring Surprising Message to Washington
Imagine if China were stationing large numbers of troops in the United States. Imagine that most of them were based in a small rural county in Mississippi. Imagine -- this shouldn't be hard -- that their presence was problematic, that nations they threatened in Latin America resented the United States' hospitality, and that the communities around the bases resented the noise and pollution and drinking and raping of girls.
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 13, 2015 When Peace Activists Met With the U.S. Institute of Peace
I was part of a debate on Tuesday that involved a larger disagreement than any exhibited at the Democratic presidential candidates debate that evening. A group of peace activists met with the president, a board member, some vice presidents, and a senior fellow of the so-called U.S. Institute of Peace, a U.S. government institution that spends tens of millions of public dollars every year on things tangentially related to peace
SHARE Friday, April 28, 2006 Mission Accomplished, May 1, Three Years On
May 1 marks three years since George W. Bush staged his "Mission Accomplished" aircraft landing in San Diego Harbor and "delivered good news to the men and women who fought in the cause of freedom: their mission is complete and major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 20, 2010 Yoo, Bybee, and Disinformation
Everything you're reading about torture lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee getting off the hook is wrong. They are not torture lawyers, they are not off the hook, there never was any hook, they may not be lawyers for long, impeachment and indictment are on the agenda, and you have a role to play.
SHARE Monday, March 7, 2011 Clinton Wants More Propaganda; I Want Less
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has declared that other nations are doing a better job of propagandizing the world and that the United States needs to do more.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, August 19, 2016 The Unbearable Awesomeness of the U.S. Military
Unrepentant, always wrong, U.S. warmongers Michael O'Hanlon and David Petraeus have authored "America's Awesome Military: And How to Make It Even Better," to explain to the rest of us that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the greatest American frack-yeah military ever AND that it is in such a pitiably weak state that if trillions more aren't wasted on it we're all going to die.
SHARE Thursday, September 8, 2016 Open the Debates. There Should Be No Debate on This.
A petition now approaching 20,000 signatures (add yours!) has been delivered to executives at ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox Broadcasting, PBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Univision, and Telemundo. It reads:
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 25, 2018 Can You Give Two Days to Stop the Slaughter?
The power of mass demonstrations to mobilize activism and move those in positions of power is minimized, first and foremost, by those opposed to popular power. Do not listen to them. Make them listen to us!
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 11, 2022 Why Russia Is Crazy
The full extent of Russia's lunacy is hidden from us by a considerate Western press careful of our delicate sensibilities.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 9, 2013 Maryland: A Government of, by, and for Lockheed Martin
What's the world's biggest war profiteer to do if it already owns the federal government but is having trouble kicking around the local government of Montgomery County, Maryland, where it's headquartered? Why, hire the state of Maryland to step in, of course.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 10, 2015 Document Shows CIA Reaction to Finding No WMD in Iraq
The National Security Archive has posted several newly available documents, one of them an account by Charles Duelfer of the search he led in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, with a staff of 1,700 and the resources of the U.S. military.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 8, 2011 Kindness, Generosity, and Bombing Libya
Wouldn't it be kind and generous of us to send the US or NATO or a UN-approved military into Libya to bloodlessly prevent the vicious slaughter of masses of people by a truly evil lunatic?
SHARE Tuesday, May 10, 2011 Harvey Wasserman on How We'll Survive and Win
I'm speaking with Harvey Wasserman, long time wonderful activist, author, author among other of wonderful books of "Solartopia," and Harvey, you were emailing me yesterday a little bit about success stories.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, November 13, 2015 Non-French War Deaths Matter
We are all France. Apparently. Though we are never all Lebanon or Syria or Iraq for some reason.
SHARE Tuesday, December 6, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Chip Gibbons on Anti-Russia Committee and Censoring Criticism of Israel
Chip Gibbons is the Policy and Legislative Counsel for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. He is also a writer whose work has been featured in Jacobin, Truthout, and Counterpunch. We discuss U.S. Congressional efforts to censor criticism of the Israeli government, and to create a new McCarthyite Anti-Russia Committee.
SHARE Monday, May 13, 2019 The Last Death in a War is 90% Backwash
They say the last sip of a drink is mostly backwash. The last understanding of a war should be that every speck of it is backwash in the sense used by Ellen N. La Motte in her 1916 book The Backwash of War.
SHARE Monday, June 1, 2020 We Are All Jakarta
The war on Vietnam plays an infinitely larger role in history in the common understanding of a typical U.S. citizen than does what the U.S. government did to Indonesia in 1965-1966. But if you read The Jakarta Method, the new book by Vincent Bevins, you will have to wonder what moral basis there can possibly be for that fact.
SHARE Monday, January 9, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Millions Lose Their Minds Over Russia
This week on Talk Nation Radio: millions of Americans lose their everloving minds over unproven accusations against Russia, the ACLU and CAIR publish claim that war on Iraq has been to protect the U.S. Bill of Rights, and a torture report gets buried.
SHARE Wednesday, July 8, 2020 Mommy, Where Do Peace Activists Come From?
The Kateri Peace Conference, which has been held in upstate New York for 22 years, will be held online this year, allowing anyone in the world who can get online to attend and hear from and speak with such wonderful U.S. peace activists (Hey, World, did you know the U.S. had peace activists?) as Steve Breyman, John Amidon, Maureen Beillargeon Aumand, Medea Benjamin, Kristin Christman, Lawrence Davidson, Stephen Downs, . . .
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, May 11, 2007 They're Not Benchmarks
So, what's left in the bill that Bush doesn't like? Benchmarks! But there are two problems with this. Bush DOES like them. And they're NOT benchmarks.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 14, 2016 Get Well, Michael Moore
Your new movie, Where to Invade Next, is very powerful, your best so far for certain.
Get well.
Fast.
We need you.
SHARE Sunday, October 14, 2018 Humanitarian Bombs
One should not sell bombs to a government that abuses human rights, which means murders a man without using one of the bombs.
If Saudi Arabia had murdered a man using a bomb, it would be fine to sell Saudi Arabia more bombs.
But Saudi Arabia murdered with a non-bomb weapon, and so shouldn't have bombs anymore.
SHARE Sunday, March 24, 2019 When the Irish Ambassador Talks About Independence in Charlottesville
I very much hope someone will take the time to videotape themselves asking His Excellency how Ireland can be considered independent when the U.S. military uses Ireland's airports to fight U.S. wars, in gross violation of Ireland's legal commitment to neutrality and against the will of the people of Ireland.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 4, 2008 Vote Like Mike
Michael Moore's new book.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, December 11, 2017 Charlottesville Finally Gets A Peace Monument
Well, we tried a petition, and I tried a TED talk (in fact two of em), and the Daily Progress daily newspaper, and Channel 19 four times: one, two, three, four, and Channel 29 too. No opposition whatsoever has been voiced to the idea of putting up a peace monument in Charlottesville, a town famously full of war monuments, including several for a war that has fallen out of favor.
SHARE Tuesday, November 14, 2023 There Is No Right Side in War
Many of us have called wars like those on Iraq and Afghanistan by the name "wars" or sometimes the name "occupation," but the current war on Gaza by the name "genocide." They've all been extremely one-sided slaughters of mostly civilians thus far the latest violence in Gaza the least one-sided of those three.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, February 1, 2010 Blocking War Funding Just Got Easier
Last June we were handed an opportunity to block the funding of our illegal, murderous, counterproductive, catastrophic, and hated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president insisted on an off-the-books "emergency supplemental" bill, and the Senate added an IMF bailout to the bill, leading all the Republicans in the House to commit what for years they'd called treason: they all voted No on war money.
SHARE Friday, June 4, 2010 100 Candidates and Organizations Say No to War $
Seventy-six congressional candidates and 24 national organizations are opposing any more funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, no matter what unrelated measures are packaged into the same bill, and no matter whether the bill appears likely to pass or not.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, April 22, 2011 A Unified Theory of War and Taxes
If you hate taxes but dutifully cheer for wars, it's lucky you also oppose school funding sufficient to produce historical literacy. Taxes are a byproduct of wars. Were it not for wars and war propaganda, this country would have never begun paying taxes. If we were to end wars, and only if we were to end wars, we could consider ending taxes too.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 23, 2018 Way Outside the Choir
Having spent years going to events organized by peace groups, at which people tell each other they should stop "preaching to the choir," I've started doing another kind of event. I debate war supporters in front of mixed crowds that include lots of war supporters, as well as people who haven't really formed an opinion yet on the question of whether war is ever justifiable.
SHARE Friday, January 13, 2023 In Praise of Email
Email doesn't buzz my phone or watch.
Email can't see me.
Email can't hear me.
Email can't cough on me.
SHARE Friday, May 29, 2020 The Problem With the Space Force Is Not a Dimwitted General
One cannot help but appreciate the speed with which it became acceptable to produce comedy about the U.S. Space Force. I don't think any military branch or war or weapon or coup or base or boondoggle has been taken off its holy pedestal more rapidly.
SHARE Wednesday, December 9, 2020 I agree with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Foreign Bases
You may have heard that the U.S. House of Representatives just passed a bill to spend $741 billion renaming military bases that have been heretofore named for Confederates. You may think that's a grand idea but still wonder at the price tag.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 30, 2021 Reflecting on the Dawn of Everything
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow is, I think, a terrific contribution to human knowledge and guide to pursuing more of the same as well as a notable accomplishment for the Davids of the world, who have perhaps been falling a bit short lately. A few of the points it documents and persuades of are:
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 30, 2008 Signing Statement Silence
This week President Bush signed the Defense Authorization bill into law, and then added a statement announcing his right to violate these four provisions. And the silence is deafening.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 22, 2020 CNN: Sanders Is The Most Electable
Remember CNN's attack-debate last week? CNN did what it could to end Bernie Sanders' campaign for president.
Well, just after that, CNN conducted a poll to measure its success. According to its own report on its own poll, CNN failed miserably.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 11, 2007 Electoral, Media, and Family Traditions
If NPR, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox had provided the storyline for the 1808 U.S. presidential election, it would have looked something like this.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 19, 2017 Against Thanksgiving
What the hell do I mean I'm against Thanksgiving? Can't I find something worse to be against? How about famine, cholera, war, slavery, rape, murder, torture, environmental collapse, refugee crises, evil heartless lying scheming governments, oil spills, slick propaganda, mass incarceration, entrenched apathy, bigotry, greed, or sadism?
SHARE Thursday, March 2, 2023 U.S. Imperialism as Philanthropy
Imperialism has been understood, even by its authors, as anti-imperialism through a pair of sleights-of-hand.
SHARE Wednesday, May 17, 2023 How Many People Has the U.S. Government Killed?
What I think Costs of War's report tells us for certain is that, how ever many people have been killed directly in these wars, huge numbers have also been killed indirectly.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 31, 2016 Protests of National Anthem Restore My Faith in Humanity
Speaking out against racism is one thing -- and a wonderful and admirable thing it is -- but choosing to do so by sitting out the U.S. national anthem, and then having others join in, or "come out" as routine national anthem sitters: this is fantastic!
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 4, 2018 Earth Over the Brink
Military bases pockmark the Land of the Free that they supposedly "serve" with disaster sites and carcinogenic chemical zones.
Cancer epidemics not seen before all this progress now rage across the "civilized" world.
A ranch outside Los Angeles is filling the atmosphere with methane.
Actual wars bring hell to North Africa and Western and Central Asia, killing the planet, not just the local populations.
SHARE Thursday, March 28, 2019 Trump & Congress Love NATO, We Love Peace
The head of NATO is visiting the White House and Congress next week to be publicly praised by the U.S. President and both big political parties. For more on how they love NATO, keep reading.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, August 31, 2020 I Will Not Be Part of Harming Any Child
I will not be a part of the killing of any child no matter how lofty the reason.
Not my neighbor's child. Not my child. Not the enemy's child.
Not by bomb. Not by bullet. Not by looking the other way.
I will be the power that is peace.
SHARE Thursday, July 22, 2021 Congress-Pentagon Flap Over Critical Race Theory: A Job for Critical War Theory
That the United States has always been so deeply afflicted with structural and cultural racism that it sometimes goes unnoticed and needs to be addressed is hardly disputable. Who is anybody kidding? Have you seen U.S. history? Have you seen the United States? That we should care what the head of the Pentagon says about it in dumb little sound bytes is . . .
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 12, 2018 The Limits of Empathy
Paul Bloom's book Against Empathy was bound to be either advocacy for cruelty and sadism, or a horribly misguided attempt to improve the world, or false advertising (it would turn out he's only against the most narrowly or bizarrely defined concept of empathy), or genuinely interesting. It turns out to be a combination of the last two, plus a third part made up of numerous lengthy but tangentially related topics.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 22, 2018 Classical Conditioning for Peace
What would happen if a government were to invest heavily in advertising and recruitment, and then pay hundreds of thousands of young people good salaries to be conditioned for peace.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 29, 2020 Glory: The Deadliest Drug
Yale Magrass and Charles Derber's latest book is called Glorious Causes: The Irrationality of Capitalism, War, and Politics. I hope people are reading it. I worry, because after Mom, apple pie, and shopping, what are more popular than capitalism, war, and politics? Probably not . . . oh, I don't know . . . analyses of the similarities between the histories of Nazi Germany and the United States.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 24, 2011 Afghans for Wisconsinites
From Afghanistan: We Support the People of Wisconsin and the World
SHARE Monday, April 10, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Dennis Kucinich on Opposing War on Syria
Dennis Kucinich is an internationally renowned champion of diplomacy and peace. His distinguished career in public service dates back to 1969 and spans councilman, clerk of courts, Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio State Senator, 8 term Member of US Congress and 2-time Democratic candidate for President of the United States. We discuss U.S. warmaking in Syria.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 6, 2023 Nobel Committee Doesn't Even Pretend the Peace Prize Is About Peace
The Nobel Committee has yet again awarded a peace prize that violates the will of Alfred Nobel and the purpose for which the prize was created, selecting a recipient who blatantly is not "the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses."
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, April 27, 2009 The International Criminal Court and A Rogue Empire
This is largely a history of the development of international law, culminating in the surprising success of the creation of an international criminal court (ICC). The ICC now has 108 countries as state parties, and the theoretical power to prosecute war crimes by anyone anywhere on earth.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 7, 2010 Will Health Bill Allow States to Do Better?
The health insurance bill currently under consideration in Congress would forbid states from providing their residents with healthcare. An amendment correcting that problem was passed in committee last July and then quietly removed. A new campaign is asking the Democrats who voted for that amendment to withhold their votes on the bill until it is reinstated.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 13, 2014 World Has No Idea How U.S. Decides on Wars
People from Yemen and Pakistan and elsewhere have told me, and have testified in the U.S. Congress, that they have a hard time convincing their neighbors that everyone in the United States doesn't hate them.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 8, 2011 You Might Be a Transpartisan If . . .
Transpartisan: an American interested in introducing humanity and complexity (and civics lessons) into political communications by working around the corporate media.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 25, 2013 Libyan Door to Syrian Door to Iran
I do assess with varying degrees of horror (some of the varying degrees rather high even) that a lot of people are going to die.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 3, 2015 Catholic Senator Says Pope Dead Wrong on Arms Trade
"Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society?" the Pope asked the United States Congress during his speech there in September. "Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade."
SHARE Tuesday, January 17, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Antonia Juhasz on Tillerson, Trump, and Oil
Antonia Juhasz is an energy analyst, author, and investigative reporter. She recently wrote a profile of Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for In These Times magazine. We discuss Tillerson and the oil spill he floated in on.
SHARE Monday, August 17, 2015 Redemption Remains
It is possible for people to behave well in a crisis. It is possible for people to maintain their dedication to good and kindness in the face of fear and horrific loss. The loved one of a murder victim can love and comfort the murderer. This fact is going to become ever more crucial to understand and demonstrate as the crises of a collapsing climate engulf us.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 24, 2022 Every Single Member of Congress Is Willing to Let Yemeni Children Die
Every Single Member of Congress Is Willing to Let Yemeni Children Die.
If you want to prove that statement wrong, I think you'll want to start by proving wrong one or more of these five points:
SHARE Thursday, September 28, 2017 Armistice Day 99 Years On and the Need for a Peace to End All Wars
November 11 is Armistice Day / Remembrance Day. Ninety-nine years ago, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, fighting ceased in the "war to end all wars." People went on killing and dying right up until the pre-designated moment, impacting nothing other than our understanding of the stupidity of war.
SHARE Thursday, May 7, 2020 Video: War Is A Lie with David Swanson
Not a single thing that we commonly believe about wars that helps keep them around is true. Wars cannot be good or glorious. Nor can they be justified as a means of achieving peace or anything else of value. The reasons given for wars, before, during, and after them (often three very different sets of reasons for the same war) are all false.
SHARE Monday, October 25, 2021 Learning from Prince Tokugawa
Japan's Prince Iyesato Tokugawa ought perhaps to be of more interest to us right now than a Japanese princess currently marrying a "commoner," or Hollywood movies so focused on the violent moments in history that they've now got actors shooting cinematographers.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 27, 2015 Skipping The Speech for All the Wrong Reasons
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to hear that Congress members will skip Netanyahu's speech no matter what reason they offer. Here are some of them.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 15, 2015 What if Americans Had Known in 2013 that U.S. rejected Syria Deal in 2012?
The Guardian reported on Tuesday that the former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari, who had been involved in negotiations in 2012, said that in 2012 Russia had proposed a process of peace settlement between the Syrian government and its opponents that would have included President Bashar al-Assad stepping down. But, according to Ahtisaari, the United States was so confident that...
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, October 14, 2016 Debate on "Is War Ever Necessary?"
Video of a debate on "Is War Ever Necessary?"
David Swanson: No
Roger Bergman: Yes
Saint Michaels College, Vermont
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 14, 2017 Racists Love Russia?
While I've been in Russia trying to make friends, back home in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, a group of torch-bearing supporters of Robert E. Lee has held a rally generally understood as a proclamation of white supremacy. I've previously written at some length about this white identity group, their humanity, their legitimate grievances, and their support for Donald Trump.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 7, 2019 Dear Humanity, I Think We Should Just Be Friends
Friends, fellow inhabitants of planet Earth, I'm not breaking up with you. I just think maybe we ought to see other species for a while. You like dogs, right?
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 24, 2021 Outgrowing Religion, Nationalism, and Militarism
Whether humanism means atheism, or a commitment to questioning all accepted beliefs, or an identification with all of humanity rather than a small sub-group, or a celebration and promotion of all the richness of human culture, I'm in favor of it, and it has a great deal to do with the project I work on called anti-militarism. I work for an organization called World BEYOND War -- a name that is basically a positive way of . . .
SHARE Tuesday, April 13, 2021 The Brutes Haven't All Been Exterminated
Sometimes I struggle to explain why none of the endless wars can ever be ended. Are they just too profitable? Is the propaganda self-fulfilling and self-believing? Is the bureaucratic inertia that powerful? No combination of semi-rational motivations ever seems sufficient. But here's a potentially relevant fact: there are still people alive in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen.
SHARE Wednesday, June 22, 2022 Why Can't Anti-Imperial Wars Be Justified?
Let's say that we are participants in a popular democratic socialist human-rights-loving movement and successful and fairly-elected national government, and we're invaded and overthrown by a rightwing military, foreign or domestic, with horrific violence. What should we do?
SHARE Saturday, July 16, 2022 Odysseus Would Have Worked for Lockheed Martin
My eight-year-old son and I just read a shortened version of The Odyssey. Traditionally it's thought of as the story of a hero making his way past various monsters. Yet it's really quite blatantly the story of a monster making his way past various heroes.
SHARE Sunday, January 25, 2015 "We murdered some folks" in Guantanamo
Murder at Camp Delta is a new book by Joseph Hickman, a former guard at Guantanamo. It's neither fiction nor speculation. When President Obama says "We tortured some folks," Hickman provides at least three cases -- in addition to many others we know about from secret sites around the world -- in which the statement needs to be modified to "We murdered some folks."
SHARE Sunday, February 5, 2023 The Monroe Doctrine Is Soaked in Blood
When it comes to the escapades of arrogant gringos, no sampling of tales would be complete without the somewhat unique but revealing story of William Walker.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 6, 2023 Foreign Policy for Children
With the agreement of an excellent facility, I began teaching a class in a new style
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, March 5, 2010 Yoo and Jefferson
As John Yoo's visit to Mr. Jefferson's university here in Charlottesville approaches, one is tempted to ask the same question people around here ask about everything: WWJD? What would Jefferson do?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 14, 2015 What Became of the Vikings?
When the United States is identified as an empire, albeit of a different sort than some others, it's common to point to the fate of ancient Rome or the empires of Britain, Spain, Holland, etc., as a warning to the Pentagon or even to CNN debate moderators.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, July 28, 2008 The U.S. Department of Media
Last Friday one of two things indisputably happened. Either a dozen senior Congress members and several well-known expert witnesses went certifiably and collectively insane, or charges of the most extreme executive abuses of power ever heard in the history of this nation were backed up by overwhelming evidence during a six-hour hearing of the House Judiciary Committee focused on the possible need to impeach the President.
SHARE Thursday, April 18, 2013 Vile, Filthy, Bloody, Dirty Wars
Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, has a new book that should be required reading for Congress members, journalists, war supporters, war opponents, Americans, non-Americans -- really, pretty much everybody.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 11, 2015 Senator Pushes Edge of Skin-Tight Envelope
Murphy's position would be considered militarist in the extreme outside of the United States, but advocates point out how much worse most other U.S. senators' are.
(14 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 6, 2015 Bernie Talks Militarism But Says Nothing New
If Senator Sanders were to add anything about war to his website, judging by his standard response when asked, it would be this:
SHARE Wednesday, November 11, 2015 Peace Advocate Climbs U.S. Navy Satellite Dish in Sicily
On the morning of Armistice Day, November 11, 2015, longtime peace activist Turi Vaccaro climbed to where you see him in the photo above. He brought a hammer and made this a Plowshares action by hammering on the enormous satellite dish, an instrument of U.S. warfare communications.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 10, 2014 Honestly, War Is Over
When we start talking about ending war, one common reaction -- not as common as "You're a lunatic," but fairly common -- is to propose that if we want to get rid of war we'll have to get rid of something else first, or sometimes it's a series of something elses.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 13, 2016 Judge's Iran Ignorance Is Widespread and Dangerous
U.S. District Judge George Daniels of New York has struck again, ruling that Iran must pay $10 billion to compensate for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. If you have read this story in the United States, it probably came from Bloomberg News, which uniquely failed to note that in fact nobody has ever produced the slightest evidence that Iran had anything to do with the September 11 attacks.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, November 4, 2016 How Drone Pilots Talk
For the past eight years millions of people have expended billions of words speculating about exactly how the United States kills people with missiles from drones (and missiles from other sources, such as manned aircraft, targeting people identified with drones). There is good reason to believe that for each such attack there exists a video and audio record of what the drone pilots saw and what they and their colleagues said.
SHARE Sunday, April 26, 2020 War Abolition and Italian Liberation Day
This conference against war on Liberation Day in Italy, April 25, 2020, has been in the works for many months and was to be real-world. I was to see all of you in Florence. My heart aches for that not happening and for the reasons why, although being forced online and into refraining from burning jet fuel was always the better choice for the earth.
SHARE Thursday, July 14, 2016 U.S. Drone Program Proves Counterproductive on Own Terms
If there's any debate right now in the major U.S. media regarding blowing people up with missiles from drones, it's about "transparency" (official reporting on who's killed) or death counts of those people somehow identified as civilians. But unless drones are just a means of vicariously venting rage, or of profiting drone manufacturers, they are -- like the wider wars they are part of -- supposed to serve some purpose.
SHARE Sunday, May 2, 2021 Mapping Militarism 2021
This year's annual update to World BEYOND War's Mapping Militarism project uses a completely new mapping system developed by our Technology Director Marc Eliot Stein. We think it does a better job than ever of displaying the data of warmaking and peacemaking on maps of the world. And it makes use of new data reporting on the latest trends.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 4, 2015 U.S. Movies and T.V. Shows Have U.S. Army Ratings
The U.S. Army and Air Force public relations offices have responded to a Freedom of Information Act request by releasing huge lists of movies and television shows that they have assessed and, at least in many cases, sought to influence. Here's the Army's PDF. Here's the Air Force's PDF.
SHARE Tuesday, September 4, 2018 Why I'm Going to Ireland to Try to Fix the United States
"We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser, But Ireland," it said 100 years ago on the facade of Liberty Hall in Dublin as the Irish successfully refused to be drafted into a British war. "We Welcome Neither President Nor Imperial Buffoon" might be a good new banner to promote a Trump-free Ireland.
SHARE Thursday, June 7, 2007 Rep. Nadler Says Bush a Criminal
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, said today that there is no question that the warrantless wiretaping engaged in by the Bush Administration is a felony offense and that the President and Attorney General engaged in a criminal conspiracy worse than Watergate.
SHARE Wednesday, March 22, 2023 How to Reduce Military Spending
It ought to be easy. Open bank vault, remove weapons dealers, close bank vault. In reality, we need a ton of tools, work, and luck.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 10, 2009 One Step Forward, Two Steps Toward Monarchy
It has become almost commonplace, since the release last week of seven "legal" opinions written in 2001 and 2002 by the Justice Department, to remark that unbeknownst to us we came within an inch of dictatorship. And with President Obama announcing an end to torture and a new policy on signing statements, it is extremely common to speak as if we are moving quickly and deliberately in the opposite direction. But this picture is
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 30, 2012 Drowning on Wall Street and Ending World War II
Imagine if George W. Bush had stood on the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center and declared, "We are going to continue our pursuit of world domination and environmental destruction until the oceans rise, the storms surge, and this spot and all the surrounding streets are drowned in routine floods, destroying the infrastructure, and collapsing the buildings of this great city, while you morons are distracted by my screams..
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, October 5, 2020 Top U.S. Enemy Was Its Ally, the U.S.S.R.
There's a dirty little secret hiding in WWII, a war so dirty that you wouldn't think it could have a dirty little secret, but it's this: the top enemy of the West before, during, and after the war was the Russian communist menace.
(10 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 16, 2008 Trump Should Be Fired as a Citizen
Donald Trump told Wolf Blitzer on CNN on Wednesday that Bush should have been impeached for lying us into a war, and that he was surprised Nancy Pelosi hadn't done it.
SHARE Monday, September 17, 2018 Stop Killing and Dying in Afghanistan: Now More Than Ever
The Richmond (Va.) Times Dispatch recently published an editorial, republished by other papers with the headline: "Remembering why we still fight in Afghanistan." It's a rather striking piece of writing, because it does not even attempt to offer a single reason why anyone would "fight" in Afghanistan.
SHARE Sunday, September 4, 2022 How to Oppose Both Sides of a War
It's tricky to oppose both sides of a war, and rarer even than supporting both sides. The weapons dealers support both sides.
SHARE Thursday, March 19, 2015 Blood on the Corner: Dear UVA From an Alumnus
I'm just back from a rally in front of the Charlottesville Police Department at which I heard a black UVA student say that black friends were going to think twice about trying to attend UVA after what happened tonight.
SHARE Friday, May 6, 2022 If Televisions Cared About This Planet
When we doubt that swift and dramatic change is possible, what we really mean is that we haven't seen much swift and dramatic change for the better lately. There's actually no disputing that massive and almost instant change is perfectly possible.
SHARE Friday, May 22, 2015 If U.S. Military Spending Returned to 2001 Level
The House of Representatives has headed out of town to memorialize wars without managing to achieve agreement with the Senate on reauthorizing some of the most abusive "temporary" measures of the PATRIOT Act. Three cheers for Congressional vacations!
What if not just our civil liberties but our budget got a little bit of 2001 back?
SHARE Tuesday, March 12, 2019 UVA Finally Pays a Living Wage
I think we can tentatively draw a few possible, and all of them encouraging, conclusions from the fact that the University of Virginia has announced a $15 per hour minimum wage for its direct employees.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, May 29, 2020 The War Industry Threatens Humanity
"This process is comparable to the process Corporate America uses to get you, a consumer, to purchase a product that you don't need. The only difference is that the war industry has more incisive forms of marketing."
(26 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 13, 2008 A New National Poll on Impeachment Is Possible
Widely respected polling company Zogby International has agreed to allow OpEdNews.com to commission a poll question in a national telephone poll.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, July 2, 2010 Democrats Forced to Cheat to Fund War
The Democratic leadership in the House had to resort to an unusual and underhanded tactic to pass war funding Thursday night.
SHARE Wednesday, April 8, 2020 The International Criminal Court for Africans and the Dream of Justice
The film "Prosecutor," tells the story of the International Criminal Court, with a focus on its first chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, with lots of footage of him in the year 2009. He held that office from 2003 to 2012.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 11, 2007 15 Congress Members for Impeachment
Congressman Sam Farr (D., Calif.) is the latest member of Congress to respond to intense pressure from his constituents and co-sponsor H Res 333, articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 11, 2017 Chasing a Northern Confederate Out of the South
The Washington Post proclaims: "Protesters mob provocative Va. governor candidate as he defends Confederate statue." Six seconds of video of the incident involved is likely to show up eventually here or here.
SHARE Monday, October 6, 2008 Why a City Should Oppose Attacking Iran
1.-Why the United States should not attack Iran; 2.-Why there is a serious danger that the United States will attack Iran; 3.-Why Charlottesville City Council should pass a resolution opposing such an attack.
SHARE Tuesday, June 27, 2017 Against Ignoring the KKK
When a small number of heavily armed Ku Klux Klanners from North Carolina are given vast amounts of media attention for holding a rally here in Charlottesville, Va., on July 8th, I believe people opposed to violence and racism should go nowhere near them but in no way ignore them.
SHARE Monday, September 4, 2017 Conference to Bring Together Environmental and Peace Movements
Speakers will include: Medea Benjamin, Nadine Bloch, Max Blumenthal, Natalia Cardona, Suzanne Cole, Alice Day, Lincoln Day, Tim DeChristopher, Dale Dewar, Pat Elder, Bruce Gagnon, Philip Giraldi, Will Griffin, Seymour Hersh, Tony Jenkins, Larry Johnson, Kathy Kelly, Jonathan King, Lindsay Koshgarian, Peter Kuznick, James Marc Leas, Annie Machon, Ray McGovern, Rev Lukata Mjumbe, Elizabeth Murray, Anthony Rogers-Wright . . .
SHARE Wednesday, April 11, 2018 Syria All Wrong and Backwards
In the park today I saw a teenager watching two little kids, one of whom apparently stole a piece of candy from the other. The teenager rushed up to the two of them, reprimanded one of them, and stole both of their bicycles. I felt like it was my turn to step in at that point, and I confronted the bicycle thief. "Excuse me," I said, "what makes you think you can commit a larger crime just because you witnessed a smaller one?"
SHARE Sunday, July 19, 2020 The U.S. Island
Imagine you're stranded on a barren rock in the middle of the ocean, nothing in sight but the endless sea. And you've got a basket of apples, nothing else. It's a huge basket, a thousand apples. There are various things you could do.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, January 27, 2023 How Dare I Oppose War Together With Libertarians?
I'm getting a lot more criticism for planning to speak at an antiwar rally at which libertarians will speak than I do for sitting around doing nothing. In fact, I get exactly no criticism ever from anyone for sitting around doing nothing, even though that's far more dangerous.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 28, 2007 Doug Feith versus The Blogosphere
So who is this guy briefly, Doug Feith, I mean, he looks like a nice enough guy on TV, you see him on their all the time. I saw him within the past couple of weeks chatting away with Charlie Rose, and he seemed like a very friendly guy with a lot of integrity who was trying to protect our political process from those who would harm it and so forth, and I did not hear any views to the contrary. Who is he?
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 4, 2016 This Is Our Lucky Day
This is our lucky day for quite a few reasons. We haven't yet rendered the climate of this planet uninhabitable for our species. For those of us who are not in prison: we're not in prison -- and not because of some significant difference between us and many who are. For those of us not hungry or scared . . . (see note above re prisons). But there's another big reason that this is our lucky day -- a reason that is different in
SHARE Saturday, September 9, 2006 4 Iraq War Vets Detained at Pentagon
Four veterans of the current war in Iraq and one supporter were detained at the Pentagon today after they attended an open house and left behind flyers providing information about the lethal effects of depleted uranium. "Iraq vets who have suffered the effects of depleted uranium have every right to educate others about the terrible effects of this illegal substance used in weapons produced by th
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 30, 2011 Occupation Evicted? Occupy the Place Responsible: DC
Has the First Amendment expired in your public square? Has your local park prioritized empty vistas over the right to petition your government for a redress of grievances, thereby adding one more grievance to the list?
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 27, 2017 Crackpot Criminality From Abu Through Zubaydah
John Kiriakou led the CIA operation that arrested, or rather, kidnapped without charge, Abu Zubaydah. Joseph Hickman helped imprison Abu Zubaydah as a guard at Guantanamo and was later the lead researcher for Zubaydah's habeas defense team.
Here are some highlights of a tale of crackpot criminality recounted by Hickman and Kiriakou in their jointly authored new book, The Convenient Terrorist:
SHARE Monday, April 30, 2018 Peace Comes to Korea: Let's Understand Why
When peace shows its face, and weapons companies' stocks plummet, we have to do more than just cheer. We have to avoid misunderstanding where peace comes from. We have to recognize the forces that want to destroy it. We have to work to make it last and expand.
SHARE Wednesday, April 8, 2020 Video of Webinar: David Swanson on Ending War
Video from Tuesday night's webinar. This event was sponsored by the Dallas Peace and Justice Center, Pax Christi Dallas, Code Pink, and Veterans for Peace.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 22, 2008 Common Sense Is Overrated
Michael Waldman, former Bill Clinton speech writer and current director of the Brennan Center, has a new book called "A Return to Common Sense: 7 Bold Ways to Revitalize Our Democracy."
SHARE Friday, December 9, 2016 Military Recruiting in the United States, and Planning its Decline and Fall
Most people in the United States are far from aware of the full extent of military marketing, advertising, and recruitment efforts. We run into movies and comic books and video games and toys and school worksheets and science fairs and television shows and websites all the time that have been funded by and created in collaboration with the U.S. military.
SHARE Sunday, January 22, 2023 The Monroe Doctrine Is Thriving and Must Be Undone
The U.S. does not any longer need presidents in Latin American nations to achieve its "interests" when it has coopted and armed and trained elites, has corporate trade agreements like CAFTA in place, has given U.S. corporations the legal power to create their own laws in their own territories within nations like Honduras, has massive debts owed to its institutions, provides desperately needed aid with its choice of strings...
SHARE Wednesday, November 15, 2023 10 Embarrassment-Free Methods of Flipping to Peace on Ukraine
Do you want to support negotiated compromise in Ukraine after having spent many months denouncing compromise as the treasonous work of Putin-funded commies? You've come to the right place.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 9, 2016 Now We Can Finally Get to Work
Dear Democrats,
Are you finding yourselves suddenly a bit doubtful of the wisdom of drone wars? Presidential wars without Congress? Massive investment in new, smaller, "more usable" nuclear weapons?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 5, 2018 The Ancient Mythical Rites of Pearl Harbor Day
Last week I spoke at a high school. As I often do, I told them I'd perform a magic trick. I only know one, but I know it will almost always work with no skill required. I scribbled on a piece of paper and folded it up. I asked someone to name a war that was justified. They of course said "World War II" and I opened up the paper, which read "World War II." Magic!
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 18, 2021 The U.S. Military Is Registering 15-Year-Olds for the Draft
Most U.S. states still have excuses when asked to make voter registration automatic, but in various states including here in Virginia draft registration is automatic even for 15-year-olds who want a learner's permit to drive a car.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 20, 2010 We the Plutocracy
You're telling me that's in the Constitution?
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 20, 2011 The Cure for Plutocracy: Strike!
Burns argues that for the last 30 years, since 1980, the labor movement has sought ways to succeed without employing the fundamental tool required, and that employing that tool is a choice available to the labor movement and to all workers immediately without waiting for anyone's approval.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 25, 2015 How to Stop the TPP
The House and Senate have rammed through Fast Track. We always said this would virtually guarantee passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But it doesn't absolutely guarantee it.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 27, 2016 Fredric Jameson's War Machine
The total acceptability of militarism extends well beyond the neoconservatives, the racists, the Republicans, the liberal humanitarian warriors, the Democrats, and the masses of political "independents" who find any talk of dismantling the U.S. military scandalous. Fredric Jameson is an otherwise leftist intellectual who's put out a book, edited by Slavoj Zizek, in which he proposes universal conscription into the military for
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 19, 2016 Rigged -- Totally Rigged
The 2016 Republican presidential primary was rigged. It wasn't rigged by the Republicans, the Democrats, Russians, space aliens, or voters. It was rigged by the owners of television networks who believed that giving one candidate far more coverage than others was good for their ratings. The CEO of CBS Leslie Moonves said of this decision:
(12 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 6, 2008 When Would You Say Enough?
Would you say "Enough!" Even if you'd been to law school?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, May 7, 2007 The Hard Bigotry of the New York Times
There is nothing "soft" about the bigotry that allows the belief that Iraqis cannot best run their own country and manage their own resources.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 1, 2011 Rummy Gets "Defending the Constitution" Award
Then there's government-bashing, more gay-bashing, a little theocracy promotion, and astroturf training. . . oh, and something to do with Saint Peter's bones.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 16, 2018 Giving Resistance a Good Name
Around 2004 the Democratic Party line was to pretend to oppose wars. Around 2018 it wasn't. So the "resistance" of that party's followers included war opposition in 2004 but not in 2018. Its essence was and is not resistance at all, but obedience.
SHARE Thursday, March 3, 2022 40 Things We Can Do and Know for People in Ukraine and the World
Send aid to Ukrainian friends and aid organizations.
Send aid to organizations helping refugees leaving Ukraine.
Send aid especially that will reach those being refused help for racist reasons.
Share the remarkable media coverage of war victims in Ukraine.
Take the opportunity to point out the war victims in Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq,
SHARE Monday, August 1, 2022 The People in Hiroshima Didn't Expect it Either
Exactly like the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the guinea-pigged human residents of the much larger Pacific island nuclear experiments, and the downwinders everywhere, nobody sees it coming.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 19, 2008 The Constitution of the Homeland of America: Revised Abridged Edition
We the people of the Homeland, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, kill the terrorists, lock up the immigrants, and honor our Commander in Chief, do promise to vote, and shop, and watch the television news sometimes, and definitely to vote.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 18, 2008 Stoning Dubya
Now in theaters.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 25, 2009 Why Demand to Prosecute Torture Will Grow
(Remarks at Torture Accountability Action Day rally in Washington, D.C., June 25, 2009 -- video of this and other speeches at AfterDowningStreet.org)
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Health Insurance Mandate vs. the Constitution
Does the United States Constitution allow Congress to force people to purchase a product (health insurance) from a private corporation, and fine them or tax them if they refuse? The answer is a matter of debate, but there is little dispute that such an act of Congress would be unprecedented.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 12, 2012 The State of the Anti-War Movement
A magazine asked me this morning for my thoughts on Iraq and the peace movement. What did this war produce? I replied:
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, October 16, 2015 Why Peace Activists Should Stop Cheering for Russian Bombs in Syria
There's a view of Syria, common even among peace activists in the United States, that holds that because the United States has been making everything worse in Syria and the entire Middle East for years, Russian bombs will make things better.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, August 4, 2006 Conyers Releases Massive New Report on Bush-Cheney Crimes
...a staggering report, just released, which documents the hard evidence of crimes and abuses committed by President Bush and his administration (breaking 26 specific laws)....
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 24, 2018 Altruism and Sadism in Public Policy
There are three things that are almost always underestimated: the U.S. military budget, altruism, and sadism.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 30, 2009 Senate Bill Would Allow Prosecution of Bush for Iraq War
Senators Dick Durbin, Russ Feingold, and Patrick Leahy have introduced a bill in the United States Senate (S. 1346) that would allow the prosecution of George W. Bush and his subordinates for the invasion of Iraq.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 26, 2014 There Is A Deeper Wave Than This
A wave of action is coming on April 4th, the date they killed MLK, the date Cindy Sheehan lost her son, the date cherry blossoms and resisters to fascism begin to show after an endless winter of many, many years. Take a look at https://waveofaction.org
SHARE Monday, July 6, 2015 Killing Crabs and Arabs
I lead a sheltered life. Apart from visiting Afghanistan once during a war, the closest I come to danger is in sports, and the closest I come to violence is in emailed death threats from war fanatics -- and even those pretty much dried up when the president became a Democrat.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 4, 2021 What Ending a War Could Look Like
When you imagine ending a war, do you imagine the U.S. President lamenting the human cost of the war's financial expense while simultaneously demanding that Congress increase military spending - and while mentioning new wars that could potentially be launched?
SHARE Wednesday, September 23, 2015 Does the Pope Know a Boy Is About to Be Crucified?
The Pope will speak to Congress on Thursday. No other institution on earth does more to destroy the habitability of the planet for future generations. Will the Pope raise his concerns with them or only when he's thousands of miles away?
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 25, 2015 Tony Blair Is Sorry, A Little
While George W. Bush is apparently proud of everything he's ever done, Tony Blair came dangerously close to facing reality this weekend when he admitted there were "elements of truth" in the view that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the principle cause of the rise of ISIS (among other catastrophic results of that invasion).
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, October 29, 2010 This New 1994 Could Have Been 1974
When the Democrats threw out Richard Nixon and stood up for the rule of law, they won 49 House seats and 3 in the Senate.
SHARE Tuesday, June 14, 2022 Police Are a Lie
The parallels between the police-prosecution-prison system and the war system are extensive. I don't mean the direct connections, the flow of weapons, the flow of veterans. I mean the similarities: the intentional failure to use superior alternatives, the ideology of violence used to justify horrible ideas, and the expense and corruption.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 29, 2021 They're About to Add Women to Military Draft in the Name of Feminism
In some future lovely little war, perhaps with China or some other demonized target, some percentage of the U.S. public may suddenly exclaim: "Hey, since when does a draft include young women as well as men?!"
SHARE Friday, September 4, 2015 Future of War and Peace at Stake in Streets of Japan
So why does Japan, of all places, have streets full of antiwar demonstrations for the first time since the U.S. war on Vietnam? I don't mean the usual protests in Okinawa of U.S. bases. I mean Japanese protests of the Japanese government. Why? Who did Japan bomb? And why do I say the future of war and peace in the world is at stake in Japan?
SHARE Sunday, December 18, 2016 What Racist Registries Look Like
A new large photo book has just been published called Un-American: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, August 13, 2018 Yemeni Children Matter
We've been given a rare opportunity. While the United States military has slaughtered innocents by the hundreds of thousands in the Middle East over the past couple of decades, almost never have U.S. television viewers seen images of the victims, in particular images of them alive just moments before death rained down on them.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 16, 2020 Be Kind to Those Offended By It
"Good Morning! Would you mind staying a safe distance away?"
"Hi! Nice mask! Could you please wear it on your face instead of your chin?"
Helping people reduce the risk of spreading a deadly disease requires being willing to offend them.
SHARE Thursday, June 10, 2021 Abolishing Police and Abolishing Militaries
The similarities between the movement to abolish war and the movement to abolish police and prisons jump out at me anew when reading Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'Til We Free Us, which is about police and prison abolition. The book has a foreword by Naomi Murakawa that includes this:
(11 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 15, 2010 The Pentagon Papers Are Public This Time
If a new Daniel Ellsberg were to release a new pile of Pentagon Papers exposing the lies behind the Afghanistan War, or even the past few decades of misdeeds by our country in that one, the result would differ from what happened to Ellsberg in a number of stark ways. No newspaper would touch it. The whistleblower would go to prison. Little of substance would be added to what we already know and tolerate.
SHARE Monday, July 10, 2017 Why We're Kayaking to the Pentagon, and Why You Should Join Us
We're going to organize a flotilla for the environment and peace, bringing kayaktivism to Washington, D.C., on September 16th. Why? What's the relevance? Who's drilling for oil on the Potomac?
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, November 9, 2018 A Tale of Two Marines
These two young men may have an infinite number of things in common, but the actions they took this week do not.
(11 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 9, 2007 The Obama-Edwards Ticket
A top priority for progressives regarding next year's presidential election should be convincing Barack Obama and John Edwards to join forces as a ticket and defeat Hillary Clinton.
SHARE Saturday, October 9, 2021 Harry Potter and the Secret of COP26
"Blimey, Harry!" exclaimed Ronald Weasley, his face pressed to the window, peering out at the swiftly passing countryside as the glistening red Hogwarts Express belched coal smoke into the sky on its way north to Glasgow for the COP26 climate conference. "If the secret that you have to find is both known and unknown to all Muggles, then it follows that it's known to a lot of us too. And it also follows ...
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 23, 2022 When Backing War Is the Only Sane Position, Leave the Asylum
If you find yourself in a room, zoom, plaza, or planet in which only more war is considered a sane policy, check quickly for two things: which inmates are in charge, and are there any open windows handy. You may have to make the case for turning the place upside-down from within it, but you'll have to figure out a way to get yourself considered sane first.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 17, 2016 Hillary Is A Neocon
"For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be." --Robert Kagan
SHARE Friday, November 2, 2018 Tell the Truth: Veterans Day Is A National Day of Lying
Do people really "fall" in a "sacrifice," or are they slaughtered in a stupid heartless machine? Do they "transition" to civilian life, or do they crash into an agonizing obstacle course of injury, guilt, PTSD, and culture shock? Are veterans more often disturbed by apocryphal tales of being spat on, or by naive gratitude for having committed moral atrocities?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 28, 2010 Bruce Fein Schools Henry Kissinger
Bruce Fein concludes his new book, "American Empire: Before the Fall," by demolishing the worldview of Henry Kissinger as expressed in a Washington Post column last year.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 27, 2014 When Catholics Become a Peace Church
In October, Pax Christi will buy a full-page adin the National Catholic Reporter prior to the annual meeting of the U.S. bishops. The ad will advocate abandoning the idea of a "just war," something the Catholic church, including in recent statements by the current Pope, shows signs of possibly being willing to do. James Rauner's article below reports how the Catholic church outside of the United States has opposed past wars.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 26, 2017 Can Canada Get Out of the War Business?
Canada is becoming a major weapons dealer, a reliable accomplice in U.S. wars, and a true believer in "humanitarian" armed peacekeeping as a useful response to all the destruction fueled by the weapons dealing.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 17, 2022 Overthrowing Governments Is a Giant Failure
Successful government overthrows -- the focus of a new book -- turn out to usually be giant stinking disasters on their own terms.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 4, 2011 What's Missing: Non-Electoral Politics
Nobody favors eliminating elections, and nobody favors eliminating activism. But there are those who cannot see how prioritizing money-marinated, gerrymandered, cable-news-controlled, unverifiable elections will reverse the train wreck in progress. And there are those who cannot see what it would mean to engage in activism that wasn't aimed at promoting electoral victories.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 1, 2018 Take a Knee and a Stand
Thank you for inviting me. What I contended in the article that got me invited here was that one of the biggest taboos in the United States, one of the behaviors treated most as a heresy, as a violation of national religion, is disrespect for the U.S. flag, the national anthem, and the patriotic militarist exceptionalism that accompany those icons.
SHARE Thursday, July 16, 2020 Bats With Napalm Vests And Other Great American Innovations
Nicholson Baker's new book, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act, is staggeringly good. If I point out any minor complaints with it, while ignoring, for example, the entirety of Trump's latest press conference, this is because flaws stand out in a masterpiece while making up the uniform entirety of a Trumpandemic Talk.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 11, 2006 Cindy Sheehan's New Book: Dear President Bush
Cindy Sheehan's interviews, essays, and speeches get better with each passing month, as her pain continues, her passion and insight grow, and the war that killed her son goes on – as the president who killed her son goes on being president.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 15, 2015 Study Finds People Assume War Is Only Last Resort
A scholarly study has found that the U.S. public believes that whenever the U.S. government proposes a war, it has already exhausted all other possibilities.
SHARE Saturday, July 22, 2023 From Scranton to Ukraine, All Is Not As It Seems
There is something that we need to tell a great many of our friends and neighbors. It is that we have been misled. All is not as it seems.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 13, 2015 Pentagon Admits that War is Illegal
The Pentagon has just published 1,204 pages on how it thinks you can behave legally during a war. Looking through this "Law of War Manual" at various hot topics, one finds some atrocities excused as acceptable (cluster bombs, nuclear bombs) and others rejected as completely disallowed (torture) even when in reality they are routinely engaged in.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, December 9, 2016 Black and Foreign Lives Matter: Ending Gun Violence Requires Ending War
Happy Human Rights Day, and what ever happened to the right to life?
We need to stop imagining that when wars come home to the land of their creators that the suffering created is something separate from war. And we need to stop imagining that racist cruelty at home doesn't fuel the distant wars.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 30, 2017 Charlottesville's Past That Isn't Even
Here in Charlottesville, Virginia, I like to point out that the rallies of racists are mostly imported from out of state. It's tempting to relax comfortably on that assertion, and to reflect on how our great lord and master Thomas Jefferson owned people with more reluctance and inner turmoil than Barack Obama bombing a foreign country or Donald Trump mouthing kind or coherent phrases from a teleprompter.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 19, 2009 Too Slow Zelikow: UVA Backs Torture
If I could feel more shame over my country's torture it would be over my university's support for torture.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 4, 2010 33 Billion Dishonest Excuses for War
If you were to call your congress member's office at 202-224-3121 and ask them to vote against spending $33 billion to escalate the war in Afghanistan, they would give you one of several common excuses.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 29, 2012 Confessions of a Drone
They told me I was the best, better than any human. I didn't hesitate. I didn't flinch. I didn't think.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 9, 2012 Citizen Diplomacy May Save Us Yet
For as long as there's been a United States of America, its private citizens have done some of its best diplomacy.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 12, 2016 Un-Trump the World
A couple of dozen young people marched back and forth through downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, Saturday evening shouting "Love Not Hate!" and "No Human Being Is Illegal!" and "Black Lives Matter!" and similar anti-Trump inspired slogans.
SHARE Tuesday, February 28, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Michael Kazin on the Peace Activists Who Warned Against World War I
Michael Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown University and editor of Dissent, a magazine of politics and culture which has been published since 1954. His main interest is the history of politics and social movements in the United States. Kazin writes frequently for such publications and websites as The New York Times, Foreign Affairs , The Nation, and The Daily Beast.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, September 12, 2022 In This Disaster We Are All, Ultimately, Guilty
Telling people that the problem is something other than cultural, telling people the baseless nonsense that it's just the way the whole species is, does not help.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 3, 2016 Lessons for Peace from Back in the USSR
In the early 1980s almost nobody from the United States traveled to the Soviet Union or vice versa. The Soviets wouldn't let anybody out, and good Americans were disinclined to visit the Evil Empire. But a woman in California named Sharon Tennison took the threat of nuclear war with the seriousness it deserved and still deserves. She got a group of friends together and asked the Russian consulate for permission to visit Russia
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 22, 2011 Afghan Judges Accuse U.S. of War Crimes
What the United States and NATO are doing, seizing people, locking them up, disappearing them, and torturing them is clearly illegal and against international law, she said.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 21, 2015 What Congress Should Ask Hillary Clinton
There are dozens of Hillary Clinton scandals that I have no wish to minimize. But how is it that her habits of secrecy themselves attract more interest than the secrets already exposed?
SHARE Sunday, August 26, 2018 Have an Active Kellogg-Briand Day
There are a lot of things named Kellogg around here, and few who know why. The two biggest names in the news in 1928 were those of future white supremacist Charles Lindbergh and of Frank Kellogg. One of those names has lasted longer.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, June 7, 2021 A World Beyond War or No World at All
The Democratic Party Platform and even candidate Joe Biden promised much. In place of most of those promises, people got an off-off-Broadway show in which the President and most of the Congress Members act out the part of being upset that a couple of their members are supposedly blocking everything they really sincerely long to do -- if only their hands weren't tied.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 8, 2016 How Would Knowing the Truth Change U.S. Policy on ISIS?
Scholars have documented the consistent pattern. What makes a country far more likely to be invaded, attacked, "intervened in," or in other words, bombed, is not its lack of democracy or its government's crimes and abuses, or the crimes and abuses of some non-governmental group, but its possession of oil. Yet, with each new war, we are told to imagine that this one is different.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 22, 2014 Mark Udall and the Unspeakable
The depth of elected officials' obedience to a permanent war machine is usually a topic avoided in polite company -- usually, not always.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, June 6, 2016 Beauty Contestants Now for World War, not World Peace
Even within what Dr. King called the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, there used to be one constituency you could count on to speak up for world peace: beauty contestants.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 29, 2017 War and Peace in Trump Time: A World Beyond Arlington
And here comes Trump saying he'll torture, saying he'll steal oil, saying he'll kill families, and stepping right into more power than any human has ever held before, as ill prepared to handle it as perhaps any human to ever have reached the age of 70.
SHARE Wednesday, May 8, 2019 The Line Between U.S. Prisons and Death Camps
If a death camp is a place that lines people up and shoots them or poison gasses them to death, most U.S. prisons are, for the most part, not that. But the typical treatment of U.S. prisoners who are ill, including with life-threatening illnesses, is absolute denial of any medical care.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 17, 2008 Still Praying for America
Dennis Kucinich: Today is the sixth anniversary of my "Prayer for America" speech. Please take a moment to read the speech or watch it on Google.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 4, 2009 Putting War Waste on the Chopping Block
After what he said this week on ABC, it will be interesting to see whether Congressman Barney Frank is permitted on television anymore.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 19, 2016 What About Theresa May Plagiarizing Genghis Kahn?
If you base your voting on someone's spouse's mindless cynical blather about "values," you've got worse problems than trying to choose between two parties that can swap such blather word-for-word with each other -- and so, consequently, do we all.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 6, 2017 Why Release the Torture Report Now
Some people in the United States would maintain that environmental and climate policy should be based on facts. Some other people (there is very little overlap between the two groups) would tell you that U.S. policy toward Russia should be based on proven facts. Yet, here we are readily accepting that U.S. torture policy will be based on burying the facts.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, February 3, 2017 A Nuclear Kellogg-Briand Pact Is An Even Better Idea Than Its Author Thinks
A Georgetown Law professor named David Koplow has drafted what he calls a Nuclear Kellogg-Briand Pact. In an article proposing it, Koplow does something all too rare, he recognizes some of the merits of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. But he misses others of those merits, as I described them in my 2011 book When The World Outlawed War.
SHARE Monday, October 9, 2017 Slim Pickings for Charlottesville City Council
Thus far I'm underwhelmed by the candidates seeking to join Charlottesville's City Council this year, as well as, of course, by the current members. In the wake of the fascist rallies, the electoral system does not seem to be responding particularly well.
SHARE Monday, March 14, 2022 OMG, War Is Kind of Horrible
For decades, the U.S. public seemed largely indifferent to most of the horrible suffering of war. The corporate media outlets mostly avoided it, made war look like a video game, occasionally mentioned suffering U.S. troops, and once in a blue moon touched on the deaths of a handful of local civilians as if their killing were some sort of aberration.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, June 17, 2016 Unreported Mass Killing Leaves Thousands Dead
In what's being called the worst mass killing by the United States in the past six months, numerous mentally disturbed individuals, with the extensive backing of a well-financed terrorist organization, and support from a growing circle of allied gang members, have gruesomely slaughtered 1,110 to 1,558 innocent men, women, and children.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 1, 2009 Day Is Breaking (And Bye Bye Beck)
My new book "Daybreak" is now, on its first day of publication, ranked on Amazon.com as the #4 politics nonfiction book, the #7 nonfiction book, and the #22 book, not to mention the #1 leaders and leadership book, the #1 criminal law book, and the #1 law enforcement book.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, July 12, 2010 When Teachers Unions Back War Escalations
On July 12th I received an Email from the American Federation of Teachers with a soft pink headline and an image of a heart. It said: "Pink Hearts. Not Pink Slips." That sounded nice. The text continued:
(13 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 1, 2012 Respectable Murderers: An Open Letter to Dan Ellsberg
You and I are getting ready to tape a debate on the question of whether to vote for Obama (in "swing states"). It will air on Lila Garrett's "Connect the Dots" show on KPFK next Monday.
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 26, 2016 Party's Over, Quarter Billion Dollars on Bernie, Now What?
Well meaning people just spent a quarter billion dollars on the Bernie Sanders campaign which continues operations while its candidate says he will vote for Hillary Clinton for president.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 12, 2017 Imagine the Confirmation Hearing for Secretary of Peace
The idea has been floated and endlessly reintroduced in legislation since the founding of the United States of creating a Department of Peace. These efforts even resulted in 1986 in the creation of the USI"P" -- the U.S. Institute of "Peace" which this week held events with Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, Madeleine Albright, Chuck Hagel, William Perry, Stephen Hadley, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Susan Rice, John Kerry, and Michael Flynn,
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 15, 2008 Single-Payer Healthcare Alliance Forms in Washington, D.C.
With Barack Obama about to assume the presidency and take up the healthcare issue, leaders of single-payer healthcare organizations met for two days, November 11 - 12, at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, March 30, 2009 MoveOn Is Not New to Supporting War
While General David "Betray Us" Petraeus must be thrilled with his conversion from traitor to saint in the eyes of the pseudo-left and amazed that such things can be accomplished simply by changing the political party of the president, the group that formerly bashed him with an ad in the New York Times and now supports whatever Obama does is not as new to supporting wars as this simple story suggests.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 1, 2016 Public Relations Firm Claims to Have Ghost Written Thousands of Op-Eds in Major U.S. Newspapers
Laura Bentz of Keybridge Communications describes her company as "a boutique PR firm -- founded by a former writer for the Wall Street Journal -- that specializes in writing and placing op-eds. With some of the country's most influential trade groups and global corporations as clients, we run many of the major op-ed campaigns in the U.S. We place roughly 3,000 op-eds per year."
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 2, 2019 Closing Military Bases, Opening a New World
In a day and age when many of us are taught to overcome prejudice and behave respectfully toward all, mainstream U.S. media and school texts still habitually portray U.S. lives as the only lives that really matter.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, November 23, 2020 Top 10 Reasons to Reject Blinken
Antony Blinken is not the Secretary of State the United States or the world needs, and the U.S. Senate should reject his nomination. Here are 10 reasons:
SHARE Tuesday, November 1, 2022 The U.S. Choice Not to End This War Is Fog Fact #1
The chief fog fact is that the U.S. and its NATO sidekicks have been preventing the ending of the war, not just by providing the weapons for one side of it, but by blocking negotiations.
SHARE Wednesday, February 27, 2008 Petards of Mass Destruction
Is it possible to convict a group of people of the highest possible crime simply by editing together public statements that they made while planning it?
(11 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 4, 2008 Vermont Towns Vote to Indict Bush and Cheney
Brattleboro, Vt., voted today in support of a measure calling on the town's police force to arrest and indict Bush and Cheney. The vote was 2012-1795.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 27, 2016 Resolved: To Find Peace Advocates in Every Nation
From all around the globe, nearly 50,000 people have signed this statement:
I understand that wars and militarism make us less safe rather than protect us, that they kill, injure and traumatize adults, children and infants, severely damage the natural environment, erode civil liberties, and drain our economies, siphoning resources from life-affirming activities. I commit to engage in and support nonviolent efforts to end...
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 6, 2018 What Else You Can Do
You've been radically misled to believe that the only thing, or the most important thing, or one of the super important things you can do is vote. Voting in a functioning democracy would be a fairly important thing to do, but wouldn't somehow eliminate the thousands of important things that would also need doing. Voting in a broken democracy is a mildly important thing to do, for the reasons you know by heart, but also because
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, December 28, 2018 Corrupt Spineless Iraqi Legislators Are Right
You've got 5,000 armed foreign troops stationed in your country. You don't say a word until the idiot foreign emperor stages a surprise visit. Then you're outraged principally because he didn't notify you or meet with you or put up any pretense that your country belonged to you in any way. At that point you demand that the U.S. occupation of Iraq finally be brought to a bitter better-late-than-never end. And you're damn right.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 28, 2017 This Is Not Your Grandparents' Resistance
I want to disagree, in part, with a recent recommendation that John Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down be used as a guide to resisting the outrages of the Trump regime. I think you could present the basic plot to an average middle school student today, and they would point out the fundamental flaw quite quickly.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 15, 2017 The Problem With the CIA and Drones
Thanks to a recent Wall Street Journal article, I've been hearing from Democratic partisans that President Trump has done something brand new, and that it amounts to tearing up the War Powers Resolution by giving the CIA the power to make war.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 5, 2018 Is there anything Nancy Pelosi would impeach a president, vice president, or justice for?
Nancy Pelosi has consistently and adamantly opposed impeaching Bush, Cheney, Trump, or Kavanaugh.
This has been her position every day of the year, in the minority, in the majority, before elections, after elections.
Let's find out if there is anything she would impeach anyone for, and if so, what it is.
SHARE Sunday, November 4, 2018 Charlottesville: The Movie
This past Saturday in Charlottesville, Va., I watched the premier of the film Charlottesville, produced by the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 16, 2008 The Best Defense Iran Could Have
Given the fates of the other two members of Bush's axis of evil, some would argue that the best defense Iran could have would be a nuclear bomb. They would, however, be wildly wrong.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, January 21, 2011 Punishing Bradley Manning for the Crimes of Others
Bradley Manning, alleged U.S. Army whistleblower, is in two ways -- one likely, the other certain -- being punished for the crimes of others.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, July 18, 2011 Prisoners Have Nothing to Gain By Eating
Prisoners risking death by refusing food in the Pelican Bay supermax, and those hunger striking in solidarity in prisons around California are a judgment of our sickness. "The degree of civilization in a society," said Dostoyevsky, "can be judged by entering its prisons."
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 9, 2012 Evidence of War Lies Public Pre-War This Time
When President George W. Bush was pretending to want to avoid a war on Iraq while constantly pushing laughably bad propaganda to get that war going, we had a feeling he was lying. After all, he was a Republican.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 9, 2012 Heard the One About the Peace Activist on the Titanic?
Were an unbelievably expensive means of luxury travel between the United States and Europe invented today, there would be no reason to expect peace activists to be found among the passengers. But it is not at all surprising that among the first-class passengers on the world's largest ship in 1912 was a well-known advocate of peace.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 14, 2014 We're Not Exceptional, We're Isolated
A core of the U.S. argument for the inevitability of war and injustice is a mysterious substance called "human nature."
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 14, 2013 Syria: Pros and Cons
Mr. President, if I were a professional con artist paid to give you the pros and cons on engaging in a war in Syria, here's what they would be:
(39 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 30, 2014 Imagine There're No Countries
A serious case has been made repeatedly by unknown scholars and globally celebrated geniuses for well over a century that a likely step toward abolishing war would be instituting some form of global government. Yet the peace movement barely mentions the idea.
SHARE Tuesday, September 4, 2018 Can the Popularity of Impeachment Matter?
According to an ABC News / Washington Post poll, 49% of a sampling of the U.S. public wants impeachment begun (they don't specify when, but presumably any moment now) against Trump, while 43% do not.
(13 comments) SHARE Friday, June 15, 2007 Impeachment FAQ
Why would we want a President Cheney? Why not just wait for the next election? Won't impeachment take up too much time and distract from other goals? Isn't it more important to end the war? Isn't it more important to win the next election(s)? Wouldn't impeachment split the Democrats? Why not do investigations and see where they lead? Isn't impeachment an extreme remedy? Doesn't there have to be an actual crime committed?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 13, 2016 Ten Revealing War Lies
1. On January 31, 2003, President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair met in the White House prior to a joint press conference.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 2, 2018 Swamp Infrastructure Construction Kinetics
Now being planned and built in Washington, D.C., which is already just about coated in monuments to wars and particular warriors, are monuments to: World War I, the Gulf War, Native American fighters in wars, African Americans who fought in the U.S. war for independence, and the War on Terrorism, as well as one to Eisenhower the Warrior.
SHARE Wednesday, October 13, 2021 War Powers Reform and the Pretense Thereof
I don't like the downsides in these bills at all. I think they're horrific, disgraceful, and absolutely indefensible. But I think they're outweighed by the upsides, even in the Senate bill, though the House one is better. Yet, clearly best of all would be for Congress to make use of any of these things, either one of the new bills or the law as it exists today.
SHARE Wednesday, February 14, 2024 Both Sides Are Dead Wrong About NATO
When NATO celebrates 75 years of itself in Washington D.C. in July, some of us will be saying No to NATO and Yes to Peace, without joining either side of the commonly understood debate.
SHARE Tuesday, June 30, 2015 Iraqi Voices Are Screaming from Far Away
Iraqis were attempting the nonviolent overthrow of their dictator prior to his violent overthrow by the United States in 2003. When U.S. troops began to ease up on their liberating and democracy-spreading in 2008, and during the Arab Spring of 2011 and the years that followed, nonviolent Iraqi protest movements grew again, working for change, including the overthrow of their new Green Zone dictator.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, August 28, 2015 The Weak Tough Sell of the Iran Deal
Airing on PBS on September 12 will be an interview I watched taped at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia on August 28 with Wendy Sherman, the U.S. Under Secretary of State who played the key role in negotiating the Iran agreement.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, March 18, 2016 Obama's Seven Slaughters: It's a Disease, Not a Doctrine
Former Israeli prison guard Jeffrey Goldberg's "The Obama Doctrine" in The Atlantic presents President Barack Obama's view of his own foreign policy (with input from a few of his close subordinates). Obama views himself as a radical leader in military restraint, in brave resistance to war mongers, and in scaling back excessive fear mongering in U.S. culture.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 31, 2016 How Dateline NBC Lies About Drones
NBC's Dateline program aired pro-drone propaganda this week and has posted the video online. Their so-called report purports to be "balanced" and "even-handed." In fact it misleadingly promotes an extremely destructive government program that millions of people would protest if they knew the actual facts of the matter.
SHARE Thursday, October 13, 2016 What Police Videos Teach Us About Wars
Before people had an easy way to see video footage of police murders, headlines crediting the police with just and noble actions couldn't be effectively questioned.
SHARE Tuesday, September 26, 2017 Take a Knee for Freedom of Religion
In the United States, what puts you at the greatest risk of unpleasant repercussions is not the practicing of any particular religion, with the possible exception of Islam or anything that people might mistake for Islam. What the most factors conspire to compel you to in the United States is this: flag worship.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 31, 2021 Biden Set to Announce Radical Departure on Thursday
This Thursday, April 1, 2021, the Biden White House is set to release a collection of new plans and actions aimed at fulfilling numerous campaign promises heretofore neglected.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 2, 2012 "We Did Not Choose This War" and Other Hypocrisies
These are the words that President Obama used on Tuesday to describe the Afghanistan war, but they would have been more appropriately said by any Afghan citizen.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 25, 2018 Talk Nation Radio: Leonard Higgins on Extinction Rebeliion
Leonard Higgins is a member of the Extinction Rebellion U.S. National Coordination Team and was a valve turner two years ago, one of a number of activists who took nonviolent action to shut off pipelines. Now new nonviolent actions are underway.
SHARE Friday, May 14, 2021 Chile and Colombia to Move Money Out of Militaries
While the proposal for a global ceasefire during a disease pandemic has done the opposite of catching on, there are a few small signs of sanity and even of successful activism.
SHARE Tuesday, September 28, 2021 Civic Initiative Save Sinjajevina to Receive the War Abolisher of 2021 Award
Civic Initiative Save Sinjajevina (GraÄ‘anska inicijativa SaÄuvajmo Sinjajevinu in Serbian) is a popular movement in Montenegro that has prevented the implementation of a planned NATO military training ground, blocking military expansion while protecting a natural environment, a culture, and a way of life.
SHARE Thursday, October 19, 2017 Petition asks Charlottesville to keep weapons out of rallies
A new petition, signed by over 8,000 people and just sent to Charlottesville's City Council, asks Charlottesville to keep weapons out of rallies. The petition reads: "Make clear that in permits for any rallies in public spaces in Charlottesville, guns, knives, and sticks shall not be allowed."
SHARE Friday, July 1, 2022 If Democrats Didn't Suck
If Democrats threw out the filibuster today and rapidly passed legislation over the next 8 months as if they gave a damn " as if they were, oh, I don't know, the Supreme Court " and if they put just what they're increasing the military budget by into their Build Back Better bill, if they put through with majority votes just those items they were elected on that are favored by significant majorities in the country, they'd have
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, September 10, 2012 The Method to the Post 9/11 Madness
To your average educated careful consumer of U.S. news media, our militarism looks like ad hoc reactionary responses. A crisis flairs up here. We "intervene" there. An irrational foreign dictator threatens the peace over yonder. We get into wars because we have no choice, and then continue them because ending them would be somehow even worse than continuing them.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 28, 2019 If You Want to Be President, Show Us Your Budget
No presidential candidate has now or within living memory ever produced a proposed federal budget, or ever been asked in any debate or interview, to even approximate give or take $100 billion what they'd like spent where, or even just whether militarism would be better at 70%, 60%, 50%, 40%, or 30% of federal discretionary spending.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 16, 2009 Obama Protecting Bush from Spain?
The official story is that Spain has decided not to prosecute Bush's torture lawyers. Yet the known facts suggest something else entirely.
SHARE Tuesday, June 15, 2021 Beware Atlantic Charters
The last time the U.S. President and UK Prime Minister announced an "Atlantic Charter" it happened in secret, without public involvement, without Congress or Parliament. It laid out plans for shaping the world upon the conclusion of a war that the U.S. President, but not the U.S. Congress and not the U.S. public, was committed to taking part in. It decreed that certain nations would need to be disarmed, and others not.
SHARE Friday, December 17, 2021 Rusty Whistles: The Limits of Whistleblowing
I've been reading a book called Whistleblowing for Change, edited by Tatiana Bazzichelli, a beautifully put-together volume with numerous articles about whistleblowing, about art and whistleblowing, and about building a culture of whistleblowing: of supporting whistleblowers, and of making better known the outrages they've blown the whistle on.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 8, 2014 One Nation the U.S. Actually Should Liberate
Some nations the United States should probably not liberate -- except perhaps the 175 nations which could be liberated from the presence of U.S. soldiers. But one nation I would make an exception for, and that is the nation of Hawai'i.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 10, 2016 Hurricane Donald and the Storms of Changing Climate
John Feffer argued on Wednesday that Demagogue Donald, whose very existence will lead me to pretend I'm not from the U.S. the next time I'm in Europe, is part of a wider trend that's already hit Europe hard.
SHARE Tuesday, November 24, 2020 Foreign Policy Was Missing from Most 2020 Democratic Campaign Websites
In 2020 Congressional elections, 78 percent of Democratic candidates' campaign websites informed the visitor of some sort of policy platform. These varied in length and depth, but many contained substantive proposals on dozens of issues. However, only 29 percent included foreign policy as one of the topics discussed.
SHARE Friday, June 15, 2012 Atlas Drugged: A Review
It's fiction, often hilarious fiction, aimed at debunking the notion that Ayn Randian "free-market" trickle-down crapitalism can coexist with basic human decency.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 2, 2021 Why We Should Oppose the Democracy Summit
The exclusion of certain countries from the U.S. "democracy summit" is not a side issue. It is the very purpose of the summit.
SHARE Wednesday, December 15, 2021 Check Out the Check List to End Tyranny
Whether or not you're familiar (as everyone should be) with Peter Ackerman's book and film "A Force More Powerful" about successful nonviolent activism campaigns, or his other books and films on the same theme, if you have any interest in changing the world for the better you'll probably want to check out his short new book, The Checklist to End Tyranny.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 19, 2022 The Problems With Prosecuting Putin
The worst problem is a phony one. That is to say, numerous parties are using the cause of prosecuting Vladimir Putin for "war crimes" as yet another excuse to avoid ending the war the need for "justice" for war victims as grounds for creating more war victims.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 29, 2022 NATO and Russia Both Aim to Fail
It's impossible for either side to see, but Russia and NATO depend on each other.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 2, 2018 Yemen, Poisoned Water, and a Green New Deal
While U.N. figures suggest that it would take 1% of U.S. military spending to provide the world with clean drinking water, the United States could end the worst cholera epidemic in recorded history (in Yemen) for far less than that and far less than what it is spending to create the epidemic through the U.S.-Saudi war on Yemen. And what may turn out to be the most widespread poisoning of water sources around the globe ever...
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 4, 2019 Plutocratic Policy, Not Truth, Comes With a Bodyguard of Lies
At the recent World Economic Forum at Davos, a U.S. panelist claimed that high taxes on the super-wealthy and economic growth had never coexisted in any country ever. The moderator and other panelists were ready to move on, but someone had made the mistake of allowing a guy on the panel who would blurt out the obvious, and he did so.
SHARE Sunday, April 12, 2020 Now That Charlottesville Can Remove Monuments, Should It?
News reports proclaim that the Governor of Virginia has signed into law a bill allowing localities in Virginia to remove Confederate statues. In reality, this new law allows Virginia cities and counties to remove, alter, or relocate any war monuments something Virginia law had forbidden for 15 wars, including the U.S. Civil War.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, August 20, 2021 If Only Afghans Were Jews
The U.S. and other governments are not making the priority of rescuing endangered people from Afghanistan that a consumer of Hollywood movies might imagine being made were the endangered people Jews in Nazi Germany.
SHARE Monday, February 18, 2008 Happy Presidents' Day
Today we celebrate Washington, Lincoln, and all our presidents, dead, living, and among the living dead.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 11, 2009 What to Ask Eric Holder
On Thursday, January 15, at 9:30 a.m., the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold its confirmation hearing for Attorney General nominee Eric Holder. If the Senators are willing to work together and to listen to those of us who elected them, the questioning might go something like this:
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 8, 2009 Up Is Down: The Military Budget
The largest military budget in the history of the world is being increased. Certain weapons are being cut back, others expanded. But the overall budget is going UP. However, you don't need me to tell you that. You've learned it from these fine news sources:
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 9, 2018 "Why, This Isn't Cuba"
Back in the 1890s those who believed conquering a continent was killing enough (without taking over Hawaii, the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, etc.) included Speaker of the House Thomas Reed.
SHARE Saturday, January 15, 2022 25 Broken Promises: Why I Don't Believe the Filibu-Sine-Manchin Excuses
I think millions of people who identify as Democrats mean well. I think a number of Congressional progressive Democrats generally do their best in the system they're working in. I think identifying as a Republican is even more inexcusably immoral than ever. I also think the central excuses used by the leadership of the Democratic Party for its failure over the past year to do most of what it campaigned on in 2020 are BS.
SHARE Tuesday, February 1, 2011 Decades in the Making: The U.S. Police State
Andrew Kolin's new book "State Power and Democracy: Before and During the Presidency of George W. Bush" actually begins with the war for independence and continues into the Obama years.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 11, 2011 The Military: Closer to You Than Your Family
Two blocks from my house in a nondescript little building on the edge of our residential neighborhood is an office with a small sign reading "DVBIC of Charlottesville" which turns out to mean "Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center."
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 25, 2012 What a Real Peace Candidate Looks Like
It's almost unfair to compare him with one of the worst candidates his party is fielding. Yet he is almost certainly the best example of a new candidate running for an open seat and making a commitment to peace a central part of his platform.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 27, 2016 Have a Chilcot Fourth of July
This Fourth of July, U.S. war makers will be drinking fermented grain, grilling dead flesh, traumatizing veterans with colorful explosions, and thanking their lucky stars and campaign contributors that they don't live in rotten old England. And I don't mean because of King George III. I'm talking about the Chilcot Inquiry.
SHARE Thursday, May 7, 2020 Is Capitalism Too Close to See?
The United States tells itself it was created by Europeans who fled religious persecution for a land of liberty. But the biggest flood of immigrants from Europe to the United States, Canada, and Australia was made up of people fleeing the capitalism of the industrial revolution.
SHARE Saturday, February 19, 2022 What Russia and Ukraine Could Do Better
There are a number of things that have to be said first. They have to be said because virtually no U.S. television viewer knows or is likely ever to know them. They have to be said because if I'm going to suggest any flaws in the actions of the Russian government, I have to establish at least the possibility of doubt that I'm bought and owned by NATO or the Pentagon. Here are those things:
SHARE Thursday, May 21, 2015 War Speaks Every Language But Never Knows What to Say to Frogs
"Here war is munching on a village. Its missiles taking chunks, big bites out of it. War's leftover gunk seeps like saliva into the ground. It is finding its way into the village well."
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, May 27, 2016 Obama in Hiroshima Paints a Peace Sign on a Bomb
President Obama went to Hiroshima, did not apologize, did not state the facts of the matter (that there was no justification for the bombings there and in Nagasaki), and did not announce any steps to reverse his pro-nuke policies (building more nukes, putting more nukes in Europe, defying the nonproliferation treaty, opposing a ban treaty, upholding a first-strike policy, spreading nuclear energy far and wide, demonizing ...
SHARE Wednesday, September 26, 2018 The Democratic Party Comes Out Against Foreign Military Bases
I confess that the idea of fighting for "the soul of the Democratic Party" has always sounded as sensible to my ear as fighting for the soul of a cow plop, and plans to improve the world through the Democratic Party about as strategic as a preemptive compromise. The following statement from the Democratic Party has given me second thoughts:
SHARE Wednesday, November 14, 2018 No to NATO, No to Bases, No to Wars in Distant Places
As I head over to Ireland for a conference on closing U.S. and NATO military bases around the world -- and at which some of us will make plans for protesting NATO in Washington on April 4, 2019 -- the presidents of France and Germany are talking up the need for a European military that can fight the United States, Russia, and/or China.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 29, 2018 How Suzy Hansen Lost Her U.S. Exceptionalism
Suzy Hansen's book Notes on a Foreign Country is the diary of someone going through the process of gaining the world by losing their religion, the religion of U.S. Exceptionalism. She begins as an ordinary U.S. resident, not believing anything that you would find unusual, but assuming all the certifiably insane things you assume are not even questionable:
SHARE Friday, May 18, 2018 Tim Kaine's War Scam Hits a Speed Bump
Virginia ought to be in the running for worst U.S. senators in the country, a couple of walking catastrophes empowered in part by their status as Democrats and, in one case, the status of rightful Vice President if not for various outrages, real (the Electoral College, vote suppression) and imagined (Vladimir Putin's evil manipulation of the time-space continuum).
SHARE Friday, January 15, 2021 Where Will Biden Get the Money?
What's missing from Biden's proposal and the reporting around it is that little item in the federal budget that sucks down $741 billion every year.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 5, 2006 The Impeachment Moment
The first subpoena sent to the White House will be refused, of course, and the conflict will develop from that point. Democrats and any Republicans of conscience should be prepared for that and have a plan that will see us through to George Bush's removal from office for the highest of high crimes and misdemeanors.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 20, 2013 Prisons Full of Innocents
There are probably more innocent men and women in prison in the United States now than there were people in prison here total -- innocent and guilty -- 30 years ago, or than there are total people in prison (proportionately or as an absolute number) in most nations on earth.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 3, 2018 Trumperial Presidency
A January 29th letter from the U.S. president's lawyer Marc Kasowitz claims that the president cannot possibly obstruct justice, can refuse a subpoena to testify, and cannot be indicted while president. The letter also seems to claim that he can pardon himself for his crimes. The hope that such a reading misinterpreted the letter was pretty well smashed when the same president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said this weekend that the
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 12, 2021 WHIF: White Hypocritical Imperial Feminism
In 2002, U.S. women's groups sent a joint letter to then-President George W. Bush in support of the war on Afghanistan to benefit women. Gloria Steinem (formerly of the CIA), Eve Ensler, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, and many others signed. The National Organization for Women, Hillary Clinton, and Madeline Albright supported the war.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, August 24, 2012 Entrepreneur in Empire State Saves World Economy
No joke. A little innovative thinking and economic calculation, and someone has come up with a model in Niagara Falls that could restore the U.S. economy and every economy influenced by it, not to mention the natural environment and what's left of our miserable souls.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, September 6, 2013 The Bill Congress Should Pass Instead of War
Here's a preliminary draft of what the United States Congress could pass this week if it were sincerely interested in human rights, international norms, the rule of law, and peace in Syria.
SHARE Monday, February 23, 2015 U.S. Army Claims to Be Full of Liars
"Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession" is the title of a new paper by Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras of the U.S. Army's Strategic Studies Institute. Its thesis: the U.S. Army is full of liars who habitually lie as part of a lying culture that has internalized and normalized lying to the point of unrecognizability.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 2, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: John Washington: We Need a Whistle-Blower in U.S. Customs and Border Protection
John Washington is a writer and translator based in Arizona. His most recent translation, A History of Violence, about Central American politics, was published by Verso Books in 2016. He writes regularly for The Nation and In These Times. We discuss his recent articles on U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Nation's appeal for a whistleblower.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 13, 2019 Will the U.S. Senate Let the People of Yemen Live?
Never yet have both houses of Congress jointly passed a War Powers Resolution bill to end a war. That may soon change. On Wednesday, the House voted 248-to-177 to end one of the many current U.S. wars, that on Yemen. (Well, sort of. Keep reading.)
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 4, 2008 Remembering the Separation of Powers
In a December 31, 2007, editorial, the New York Times faulted the current president and vice president of the United States for kidnapping innocent people, denying justice to prisoners, torturing, murdering, circumventing U.S. and international law, spying in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and basing their actions on "imperial fantasies." Um, thanks for finally noticing. What would you suggest we do about it?
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, May 22, 2015 The 16 Core Progressive Policies, Really?
What should the U.S. public budget be? Is nearly double the 2001 level too much military spending, too little, or just right? Who knows. Babones doesn't say.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 16, 2005 How Comcast Censors Political Content
Most Comcast internet customers seem to have horror stories, but in my humble opinion this one is a doozie and may even suggest threats to freedom of speech more significant than the jailing of a court stenographer.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 27, 2018 Thinking Beyond Exceptionalism
Excepted from Curing Exceptionalism: What's wrong with how we think about the United States? What can we do about it? (April, 2018).
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 24, 2014 The Three Laws of Pentagon Robotics
Let's face it, the Pentagon needs brand new laws of robotics. May I suggest the following:
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 24, 2015 Limits of Liberal War Opposition
"No sane person welcomes war," says Reich. "Yet if we do go to war against ISIS we must keep a watchful eye on 5 things." Nobody, including Reich as far as I know, ever says this about plutocracy, fascism, slavery, child abuse, rape, de-unionization. Imagine reading this: "No sane person welcomes massive gun violence and school shootings, yet if we're going to let all these children die for the gun makers' profits we must ...
SHARE Sunday, May 3, 2020 Mapping Militarism 2020
A new collection of maps found here displays what militarism looks like in the world. Here's a brief guide to using and understanding them.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 6, 2009 Afghanistan: Two Lonely Acts of Courage
One member of Congress stood alone 7.5 years ago against the original authorization to attack Afghanistan. And one member of Congress, a different one, stood alone last week against funding a massive escalation of that war.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 4, 2014 Beyond 935 Lies
Charles Lewis' book, 935 Lies, would make a fine introduction to reality for anyone who believes the U.S. government usually means well or corporations tend to tell the truth in the free market. And it would make an excellent introduction to the decline and fall of the corporate media.
SHARE Monday, February 25, 2019 War Isn't in Your Genes or Your Jeans
I've written before about the pseudo-science of genetics, which is almost as crazy as the popular understanding of it. Our culture has long proposed that Oliver Twist could grow up middle-class in the slums because of his inherited traits. But in the age when the scientific gurus in popular films are geneticists, things have gotten nuttier.
SHARE Thursday, March 31, 2022 Don't Let a Mountain in Montenegro Be Lost to a War in Ukraine
Across the Adriatic from Bari in Southern Italy sits the tiny, largely rural and mountainous, and exquisitely beautiful nation of Montenegro. At its center is a huge mountainous plateau called Sinjajevina one of the most wonderfully non-"developed" places in Europe.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 9, 2022 Coping with the War Climate
Sometimes just for fun I try to figure out what I'm supposed to believe.
SHARE Friday, December 5, 2014 Golden Age of Pearl Harbor
Mark Pearl Harbor, not by celebrating the state of permawar that has existed for 73 years, but by reading The Golden Age by Gore Vidal and marking the golden age of anti-isolationist imperial mass-killing that has encompassed the lives of every U.S. citizen under the age of 73.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 12, 2022 But How Do You Stop Putin and the Taliban?
When I suggest not stealing billions of dollars from Afghanistan, and thereby not causing mass starvation and death, otherwise intelligent and informed people tell me that human rights demands that theft. Starving people to death is a means of protecting their "human rights," in fact. How else can you (or the U.S. government) stop Taliban executions?
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, July 19, 2010 Howard Zinn's the Bomb
In "The Bomb," Zinn describes the U.S. military making its first use of napalm by dropping it all over another French town, burning anyone and anything it touched. Zinn was in one of the planes, taking part in this horrendous crime.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 30, 2015 War Abolition Books Proliferate
A new trend is emerging in opposition to the institution of war, a trend possibly brought on in part by the end of the Cold War and by the 8-year reign of a Republican U.S. President (or was it Vice President?) who engaged in aggressive war with unapologetic rhetoric and extremely careless propaganda.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 12, 2016 Renewable Revolutionary Railroad Renaissance
The forthcoming book from creative activist and kayaktivist extraordinaire Bill Moyer and his Backbone Campaign colleagues should remake the United States and limit the oncoming onslaught of climate suffering. It's called Solutionary Rail: A People Powered Campaign to Electrify America's Railroads and Open Corridors to a Clean Energy Future.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 1, 2017 Our Causes Are Connected, Our Movements Should Be Too
Global corporations and international government alliances are pushing war, environmental destruction, economic exploitation, defunding of schools and housing, hateful divisive ideologies, and reductions in rights and liberties as a package wrapped in shiny foil, tied with a bow, and advertised in hundreds of different advertising media.
SHARE Thursday, February 11, 2010 The Horror of War on Stage
"Prophecy" is the title of a new play by Karen Malpede, and I'm here to attempt the unamerican task of telling you to see it without telling you it's a comedy. In fact, I'm going to confess that I had to take a break from it and recover before I could write about it. I felt like I'd taken a blow with an enormous sledge hammer, even though I knew that a whole orchestra of smaller instruments had produced what I was feeling.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, February 10, 2012 Learning From La Venezuela
What is it that Sheehan and Chavez think might be contagious if we found out about it?
(10 comments) SHARE Monday, October 5, 2015 The Incomprehensible Idea: What Opposing All Wars Means
The world's two big nuclear militaries are in the same war now in Syria and, if not on opposite sides exactly, certainly not on the same side. A primary, if not the primary, goal of the United States in Syria is overthrowing the Syrian government. A primary, if not the primary, goal of Russia is maintaining the Syrian government. Hostilities are building in each nation toward the other.
SHARE Thursday, October 5, 2023 The Shortest History of War Is Not Nearly Short Enough
I suppose it's important to find a balance between imaging the new and fantasizing about the highly improbable, but if you're not going to imagine anything at all, then why write a book?
SHARE Monday, August 18, 2014 Causes of War Krugman Overlooked
While I'm working on a campaign to abolish war, it's helpful and appreciated that a columnist for one of the most effective war promoting institutions in the world, the New York Times, on Sunday mused aloud about why in the world wars are still waged.
SHARE Saturday, August 8, 2015 70 Years of Korean War
After marking the destruction of Nagasaki and the police-murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson on August 9th, Americans have options for what to commemorate on August 10th. I'm inclined to think that August 10th should be formally recognized as Gulf of Tonkin War Fraud Day. But I'm not sure, because another event is in even more need of remembrance.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 9, 2006 No Permanent Bases: Passed Both Houses, Removed in Conference Committee
When the House and the Senate pass similar but not identical bills, they create a conference committee to work out the differences. When they both passed amendments to the "emergency supplemental" spending bill stipulating that none of the money could be used to build permanent bases in Iraq, the conference committee, behind closed doors this week, resolved that non-difference by deleting it.
SHARE Friday, December 11, 2009 Unemployment Insurance in a War Bill
It's always something that could pass just fine on its own. But it's included as lipstick on the recurring and ever-fattening pigs of U.S. politics: war funding bills.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 1, 2011 Can Coffee Prevent Military Suicides?
Ashley Joppa-Hagemann recounts her husband's struggles before he killed himself to avoid an eighth or ninth tour in the Iraq-Afghanistan Wars.
SHARE Thursday, July 23, 2015 George Clooney Opposes War Profiteering While African
George Clooney is being paid by the world's top two war profiteers, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, to oppose war profiteering by Africans disloyal to the U.S. government's agenda.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 16, 2016 Patrick Henry's Liberty and Obama's Climate Action
Mainstream acceptable heroes now and lasting long into the future have in common perfect understanding of what should be done, fraudulent pretenses of doing it, and calculating weakness as the true driver of their actions.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 1, 2018 Don't Deport Non-Veterans Either, Unless It's Donald Trump
We're hearing a lot about U.S. veterans being deported, just as we hear about healthcare and retirement and homelessness and countless other topics as impacting veterans in particular. The implication, and often the explicit assertion, is that we should especially care about injustice when it hurts veterans, because they've especially earned the right to be treated decently, by participating in the greatest mass-murdering ...
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 30, 2010 Does Northrop Bob Grumman McDonnell Believe in Global Warming?
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell believes in saving money and does not believe in global warming. So why did he just gave $14 million of our money to a corporation that claims it can fix global warming?
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 2, 2014 Pay No Attention to the Apocalypse Behind the Curtain
Last Thursday a place in the U.S. called the Stimson Center released a report on the new U.S. habit of murdering people with missiles from drones.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, August 1, 2014 Guess Who Cheers When Cease-Fires Collapse
Among those who cheer when a cease-fire ends and killing resumes are those who want more Palestinians slaughtered as a form of mass punishment for fictional offenses. Also among those cheering are certain mainstream U.S. newspaper columnists. In fact, at least one person is clearly in both of the above categories.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 12, 2015 Veterans Day Is Not for Veterans
John Ketwig was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1966 and sent to Vietnam for a year. I sat down with him this week to talk about it.
SHARE Friday, July 10, 2020 The Vow From Hiroshima Should Be From Everywhere
The new film, The Vow From Hiroshima, tells the story of Setsuko Thurlow who was a school girl in Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first nuclear bomb. She was pulled out of a building in which 27 of her classmates burned to death. She witnessed the gruesome injuries and agonizing suffering and indecent mass burial of many loved ones, acquaintances, and strangers.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 11, 2022 This Atheist Begs You to Read the Pope's New Book
Pope Francis's new book is called Against War: Building a Culture of Peace.
I'm sure some Catholics will recommend it to you. But let this atheist do so as well.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 2, 2014 Society as a Failed Experiment
There's little dispute among social scientists that most of our major public programs are counter-productive on their own terms. There is also little analysis of this phenomenon as a pattern in need of an explanation and a solution.
SHARE Monday, September 10, 2018 Petition and Events to Say No to an 18th Year of War on Afghanistan
A long list of prominent U.S. citizens and organizations, and thousands of additional signers, have put their names to a letter asking President Donald Trump to live up to his campaign promises and get the U.S. military out of Afghanistan. The coalition will be gathering signatures through October 2nd and delivering them to the White House that day.
SHARE Tuesday, November 21, 2023 The Violence Problem as Seen from Charlottesville
Now there are fights in Charlottesville High School to the extent that they've shut the school down for days, and it's not global news. Why should it be?
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 20, 2012 Chicago: Peace Town
A huge crowd gathered for several hours and marched for over two miles in the hot sun to oppose NATO and U.S. wars on Sunday in Chicago.
SHARE Thursday, August 7, 2014 Nixon's Treason Now Acknowledged
A George Will column this week, reviewing a book by Ken Hughes called Chasing Shadows, mentions almost in passing that presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon secretly sabotaged peace talks that appeared likely to end the war on Vietnam until he intervened. As a result, the war raged on and Nixon won election promising to end the war.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, October 20, 2014 On Killing Trayvons
This Wednesday is a day of action that some are calling a national day of action against police brutality, with others adding "and mass incarceration," and I'd like to add "and war" and make it global rather than national.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 30, 2008 Resolved: Will Create Peace on Earth
New Year's resolutions come in a lot of shapes and sizes. I don't think New Year's 2009 is a year to aim low. So, I'm resolving to create peace on earth. And I intend to follow through. The catch, of course, is that unless a couple of million other people make the same resolution and really commit to it, then I will have been a liar.
SHARE Friday, March 5, 2010 States Begin to Fix Our Prison System
David Cole of Georgetown University and formerly of the Center for Constitutional Rights has been doing some good writing, not only on our failure to enforce laws against powerful people, but also on our out-of-control epidemic of incarceration which has struck those too unimportant to gain immunity.
SHARE Thursday, June 10, 2010 Mass Murder in Chartlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville was the kind of town where murder was so rare that any occurrence of it was publicly discussed and mourned in detail. Everyone felt for the victims, whether they knew them or not. All of that has changed.
SHARE Monday, February 2, 2015 When Veterans Try to End Wars
It's a story that has been told many times during the past several years, but this version seems particularly well done; perhaps the distance helps.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, March 17, 2017 Trump's Budget Counts on Us to Be Dumber Than He
Donald Trump does not always in every way appear to be the sharpest tool in the shed. Yet there is great wisdom to be found in some of his assumptions of stupidity on the part of the rest of us.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, August 30, 2021 What the War of Terror Has Cost Us So Far
Malika Ahmadi, two, died in a U.S. drone strike on Kabul today, her family says. Has the war of 20 years cost us the ability to care?
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 18, 2015 Yall Are Talking About War Wrong
Former head of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Lt. General Michael Flynn has joined the ranks of the many recently retired officials openly admitting that what the U.S. military does generates dangers rather than reducing them.
SHARE Wednesday, September 30, 2020 The Long History of the Nazi Salute and the USA
If you do a web search for images of "Nazi salute" you find old photos from Germany and recent photos from the United States. But if you search for images of "Bellamy salute" you find countless black-and-white photographs of U.S. children and adults with their right arms raised stiffly out in front of them in what will strike most people as a Nazi salute.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 1, 2010 Tonight They Try to Escalate the War
Tonight the House of Representatives will try to vote over $30 Billion to escalate the war in Afganistan. Here's how it's expected to go down.
SHARE Friday, October 16, 2015 Reject Plan to Continue War on Afghanistan
President Obama's decision to leave actually ending, as opposed to officially "ending," the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan to his successor (barring Congress developing the nerve and the decency to act) illustrates our collective and his personal failure to overcome what candidate Obama once called the mindset that gets us into wars.
SHARE Tuesday, November 3, 2020 In 1940, the United States Decided to Rule the World
Stephen Wertheim's Tomorrow, The World examines a shift in elite U.S. foreign-policy thinking that took place in mid-1940. Why in that moment, a year and a half before the Japanese attacks on the Philippines, Hawaii, and other outposts, did it become popular in foreign-policy circles to advocate for U.S. military domination of the globe?
SHARE Tuesday, March 29, 2016 U.S. State Department: Don't Hurt ISIS
The U.S. State Department does not want the government of Syria to defeat or weaken ISIS, at least not if doing so means any sort of gain for the Syrian government. Watching a recent video of a State Department spokesperson speaking on that subject might confuse some U.S. war supporters. I doubt many residents of Palmyra, Virginia, or Palmyra, Pennsylvania, or Palmyra, New York could give a coherent account of ...
SHARE Tuesday, July 12, 2016 Will the Zanana Ever Stop?
In the dialect of Gaza, where drones buzzed and blew things up for 51 days two years ago, there's an onomatopoetic word for drones: zanana. When Atef Abu Saif's kids would ask him, during that war, to take them out of doors somewhere, and he would refuse, they would then ask: "But you'll take us when the zanana stops?"
SHARE Wednesday, August 8, 2018 Best National Government in North America: Mexico
At least that's the hope of those who elected Andre's Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO, aka Peje, on a platform of sweeping out the corruption -- a platform promoted in Obrador's book, A New Hope for Mexico. That Barack Obama did not permanently decommission the word "hope" for credible electoral campaigns on this continent may be the least of the book's surprises.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 11, 2022 Is Psychiatry a Mental Illness?
Bruce Levine's books have been getting more and more thorough in their debunkings of the claims of psychiatry. His latest is A Profession Without Reason.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 15, 2008 Veterans Occupy National Archives
This was the second time that a group of veterans opposed to illegal wars and in favor of the rule of law had taken over the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. The first time, several weeks ago, a group of them had climbed onto a ledge on the front of the building with flags and banners. This time, they aimed higher.
SHARE Wednesday, November 23, 2016 Solving Abusive International Relationships
There's a chapter in a new book by Dorothie and Martin Hellman called A New Map for Relationships that outlines seven international relationships between the United States and others in which many people in the United States have not understood their government's abusive behavior. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 8, 2017 A New Armistice Day
Exactly at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 99 years ago, people across Europe suddenly stopped shooting guns at each other. Up until that moment, they were killing and taking bullets, falling and screaming, moaning and dying. Then they stopped, on schedule. It wasn't that they'd gotten tired or come to their senses. Both before and after 11 o'clock they were simply following orders.
SHARE Tuesday, November 2, 2021 It's the Weapons Sales, Stupid
U.S. presidential election campaigns have been known to focus on the slogan "It's the economy, stupid."
Efforts to explain the behavior of the U.S. government ought to put a little more focus on a different slogan, found in the headline above.
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 1, 2007 33 Congress Members for Impeachment
I ran into Congressman Donald Payne Tuesday evening and asked him if he would sign on to cosponsor H Res 333, articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney. He said yes immediately and brought his legislative director in on the conversation. They both said yes, as a matter of course, as if all they'd been waiting for was someone to ask them.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 1, 2016 Damned Nations, Cursed Arms Trade
Samantha Nutt has spent decades working on humanitarian aid in war zones. Her book, Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies, and Aid, is rich in wisdom drawn from experience. But more powerful and pointed, and worth beginning and ending with, is her talk titled "The Real Harm of the Global Arms Trade."
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 7, 2007 10 States Introduce Impeachment
In 10 U.S. states, either this year or last year or both, the state legislature has introduced and considered, though not yet passed, a bill to petition the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach Bush and Cheney. The question, of course, is what in the heck is wrong with the other 40 states?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 22, 2020 Guess Who Arms Both Azerbaijan and Armenia
As with many wars around the world, the current war between Azerbaijan and Armenia is a war between militaries armed and trained by the United States. And in the view of some experts, the level of weapons purchased by Azerbaijan is a key cause of the war. Before anybody proposes shipping more weapons to Armenia as the ideal solution, there is another possibility.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 28, 2017 A Model City Resolution to Resist and Overcome
Whereas President Trump has proposed to move $54 billion from human and environmental spending at home and abroad to military spending, bringing military spending to well over 60% of federal discretionary spending . . .
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, April 9, 2021 F-35s Are Terrorizing Vermont
For the past year, F-35s have been landing and taking off from Burlington International Airport in Vermont. This 12-minute film consists of voicemail messages left by people who live beneath the flight path.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 7, 2017 Silicon Oligarchs Should Save Themselves, Not Us
To get a sense of what computer geek robber barons would make of the world and are making of the world, pick up a copy of The Know It Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball by Noam Cohen.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 7, 2013 A Peace Movement That Moves Toward Peace
Why did the peace movement of the middle of the last decade not grow larger? Why did it shrink away? Why is it struggling now?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 22, 2014 ISIS: Bush Was Right
Finally, somebody commenting on the state of Iraq thinks George W. Bush got something right. Turns out it's ISIS.
SHARE Monday, August 9, 2021 Learning From Vamik Volkan
A new film by Molly Castelloe called "Vamik's Room," introduces the viewer to Vamik Volkan and psychoanalysis of international conflict.
SHARE Friday, March 19, 2021 A Divided U.S. and the Dangers of Misdirected Anger
Many people in the United States, as in many other places, are getting angrier. This would be a good thing if they all understood whom they should be angry at and the superiority of nonviolent activism to stupid, futile violence.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 17, 2008 Leslie Angeline Meets With John Conyers on Impeachment, Continues Fast
Dozens of people around the country are now fasting for impeachment. New Hampshire State Representative Betty Hall, who will lead a public hearing this week on a resolution to urge Congress to impeach, is 87 and fasting, and has said she would consider dying in this fast a good way to end a full life. Below is a report from the woman who began the fast. She met with House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers on Friday.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, November 4, 2013 Amnesty International Explains Why It Won't Oppose All Drone Murders
On this show, Shah explained that Amnesty International cannot oppose all drone strikes in an illegal war, because Amnesty International has never opposed a war, because doing so would make it look biased, and A.I. wants to appear to be an unbiased enforcer of the law.
SHARE Sunday, April 13, 2014 Torture is Mainstream Now
As Rebecca Gordon notes in her new book, Mainstreaming Torture, polls find greater support in the United States for torture now than when Bush was president. And it's not hard to see why that would be the case.
SHARE Sunday, November 6, 2011 Imagine If War Were Illegal -- It Is!
In January 1929 the U.S. Senate ratified by a vote of 85 to 1 a treaty that is still on the books, still upheld by most of the world, still listed on the U.S. State Department's website -- a treaty that under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution is the "supreme law of the land."
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 7, 2013 Let's Begin Ending War Again
How, we must ask ourselves, can we strengthen what's already underway, learn from what's been tried before, and create the spark that this time, at long last, after over a century's preliminaries, catches fire?
(16 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 24, 2014 The Palestinian Right and the American Left
Chris Hedges says that Palestinians have the right to self-defense in the form of rockets, without including any consideration of whether the rockets make the Palestinians more or less defended. There is, after all, a reasonable argument that the rockets are counter-productive and endangering, rather than protecting, Palestine.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, May 2, 2016 The United States Just Bombed Germany
If the bombing occurs when the bombs that have been dropped from U.S. airplanes explode, then the United States just bombed Germany and has been bombing Germany every year for over 70 years.
SHARE Sunday, September 24, 2017 #NoWar2017 All of Day One
Watch this video of the first day of #NoWar2017 on September 22, 2017 from WorldBeyondWar.org:
SHARE Thursday, July 9, 2020 20 Congress Members Who Understand What's Needed
The U.S. Congress has 100 Senators and 435 House Members. Out of the full 535, there are 20 thus far who have made themselves sponsor or cosponsor of a resolution to do what is most badly needed, move major amounts of money out of wars and war preparations and into human and environmental needs.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 6, 2020 Blockading Cuba Serves No Purpose Beyond Sadism
The fact is that Obama did something right for once in opening up trade and travel with Cuba. And I visited Cuba and wrote about it and posted lots of photographs. And Trump undid it.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 16, 2021 Conscientious Objection: A Right and a Duty
I want to recommend a new film and a new book on the topic of conscientious objection, something we need a lot more of.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, December 13, 2021 Elizabeth Samet Thinks She Already Found the Good War
To call Looking For the Good War a critique of the idea of the good war requires defining "good," not as necessary or justified (which ought to be all one could hope though one would be wrong for mass murder), but as beautiful and wonderful and marvelous and superhuman. Such a critique is fine and helpful, except to the extent that it reinforces the most damaging bit, the claim that a war can be justified.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, May 9, 2011 NY Times Takes on Pentagon Spending With Two Hands Tied Behind Its Back
The New York Times has posted seven super-short columns on how to cut the U.S. military. All seven seem to support cutting the military in one way or another. That's excellent, and I don't mean to complain, but . . . .
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 10, 2013 Drones and Our National Religion
The national religion of the United States of America is nationalism. Its god is the flag. Its prayer is the pledge of allegiance.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 15, 2013 Admit It: Things Are Going Well
When something goes right
Oh, it's likely to lose me
It's apt to confuse me
It's such an unusual sight
--Paul Simon
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 28, 2014 Monty Python State Department
Scene: A cafe. One table is occupied by a group of Vikings wearing horned helmets.
SHARE Sunday, December 4, 2016 Give Wes Bellamy a Break
Charlottesville City Council Member Wes Bellamy is being widely denounced for tweets he tweeted years ago. I think he should be given a break.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 3, 2018 Ban Tear Gas
Tear gas is among the least of the problems facing those who care about the murder and destruction of war. But it is a major element in the militarization of local policing. In fact, it is widely deemed illegal in war, but legal in non-war (although what written law actually creates that loophole is unclear).
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, January 22, 2021 Pope's Words in Open Letter to Joe Biden
"We can no longer think of war as a solution, because its risks will probably always be greater than its supposed benefits. In view of this, it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a 'just war'. Never again war!"
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 22, 2016 The Sacrifice of an American Gladiator
Dan Ireland's The Ultimate Arena: The Sacrifice of an American Gladiator is a fictionalized account, speculative in some of the details, but true in all the major facts, to the story of Pat Tillman. Any Good American who "supports the troops" has a duty to read this book, as it recounts the life and death of just about the only troop in recent years to be given a face and a name, if not a voice, by the U.S. media.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 23, 2023 The People Over Pentagon Act Is An Act
To understand why this thing is a scam, it helps to look at an account of how wonderfully awesome the Progressive Caucus is. It reads in part:
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 18, 2015 The Coup
The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations deals with such an engaging topic that even this new book can't really make it boring, hard as it seems to try. When asked what historical figure I would most like to bring back to life and have a talk with I tend to think of Mossadeq, the complex, Gandhian, elected leader, denounced as both Hitler and a communist (as would become part of the standard proc
SHARE Thursday, January 6, 2022 There Will Be Many Acts of Kindness on the Way Down
I live in a wealthy country, the U.S., and in a corner of it, a part of Virginia, not yet hit hard by fires or floods or tornados. In fact, until Sunday night, January 2nd, we'd had rather pleasant, almost summerlike weather most of the time since summer. Then, Monday morning, we got several inches of wet, heavy snow.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 3, 2014 First 13 Years in Afghanistan Big Success, Next 10 Promise Joy and Prosperity
Here comes another October 7th, time once again for celebrating the International Day of Wars-Start-Easy- But-They're-a-b*tch-to-End. That is, if we can spare a few moments away from celebrating the new wars we're starting.
(26 comments) SHARE Friday, August 31, 2007 Peace, Injustice and Ron Paul
If Ron Paul had been president for the past 6 years, a million more Iraqis would be alive, and another 4 million would not be refugees. The world would be a safer place, and Americans would have lost fewer freedoms. But more Americans would lack decent health care. More American children would lack adequate education. More families in America would struggle in poverty. Immigrant families would face increased threats and ...
SHARE Tuesday, February 9, 2010 Brownbaggers not Teabaggers
On February 17th, PDA will be joined by CODEPINK, AfterDowningStreet, Democrats.com, the California Nurses Assn./National Nurses United, and United for Peace and Justice in holding brownbag vigils outside (or inside) at least 36 congress members' offices.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 31, 2017 The Next Step in Caring
Airport resistance is the biggest step forward by the U.S. public in years.
SHARE Sunday, February 26, 2017 Open Guantanamo!
Before, during, and after President Barack Obama's announcements of closing Guantanamo, it constituted an illegal prison whose guards used and still use torture, human experimentation, murder, secrecy, and lies.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 1, 2018 Is War Alcohol?
Is there an epidemic of people falsely thinking of war as being too much like alcohol? Yes, I think there is.
SHARE Tuesday, June 11, 2019 Confronting Censorship in Ireland
According to exit polls from late May, an impressive 82% of Irish voters say Ireland should remain a neutral country in all aspects. But Ireland is not remaining a neutral country in all aspects, and there's no indication of whether Irish voters know that, or specifically what they think of the fact that the United States military, year after year, ships large numbers of troops and weapons (and occasionally presidents) through
SHARE Tuesday, July 14, 2020 Talk Nation Radio: Heidi Peltier on the Camo Economy
This week on Talk Nation Radio: massive, shameless, and endlessly expanding war profiteering by weapons dealers. Our guest is Heidi Peltier, author of a new report called "The Growth of the 'Camo Economy' and the Commercialization of the Post 9/11 Wars."
(10 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 16, 2016 Secession, Trump, and the Avoidability of Civil War
The Governor of California has joked about building a wall all the way around his state if Donald Trump becomes president of the other 49. Secession would not be a joke had it not been given an undeserved bad name. It would not have that bad name but for our universal acceptance of imperialism and of an overly simplistic history of the U.S. Civil War.
SHARE Thursday, September 9, 2021 Guantanamo Past the Point of All Shame
U.S. high schools should teach courses on Guantanamo: what not to do in the world, how not to make it even worse, and how not to compound that catastrophe beyond all shame and recovery.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 19, 2009 Rotten at the Core
--Remarks on March 19, 2009, in a park in which people are living in Richmond, Va., in front of offices of the Federal Reserve--
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 14, 2016 ISIS and U.S. Weaponry: At Home and Abroad
When someone commits mass murder in the United States and is tied, however significantly, to a foreign terrorist group, there remains a section of the U.S. population willing to recognize and point out that no ideology, fit of hatred, or mental derangement can do the same damage without high-tech weaponry that it does with it. Why does this understanding vanish into the ether of ignorance and apathy at the water's edge?
SHARE Wednesday, May 19, 2021 60 Thousand Pentagon Spies Tripping Over Their Fake Clown Shoes
When you dump $900 million dollars unbeknownst to anybody into 130 private companies listed absolutely nowhere to get 60,000 undercover clowns employed at household-name corporations that even the author of the article linked above doesn't name a single one of, who is to say what will happen?
SHARE Tuesday, March 13, 2007 How the Blogosphere Is Saving the Boob Tube
Judy Daubenmier spent 25 years as a reporter for the Associated Press and saw the field of news reporting sliding downhill. Now she works to reform our system of communications through the internet. Daubenmier is the author and editor of "Project Rewire: News Media from the Inside Out." I talked to her about her work and her hopes for news reporting in the future.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 6, 2009 Join a Convoy to Gaza
We need to show the world that Americans care.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 30, 2009 Dangerous People Needed
On Thursday night I had the privilege of viewing a premier of a film together with its star. The theater was in the U.S. Capitol, and the film was "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers"
SHARE Wednesday, December 28, 2016 To Weapons Dealers, Laws Are Decorative Holiday Ornaments
You might be forgiven for imagining that laws are serious things. When you violate them, you can be locked in a cage for decades. That's not true for big-time weapons dealers like the U.S. government.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 29, 2018 Regulating Apocalypse
The phrases used to oppose proposals for major change haven't changed much for centuries, in both meanings of that phrase.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 20, 2018 U.S. Military Out of Syria
Removing troops from the ground -- all of them, not just some -- and ceasing base construction, if it happens, will be a start.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 12, 2015 The Last Jeb Killed for Slavery, The Last Bush Killed for Oil
Presidential elections should be limited to as short a time period as possible and are generally the biggest drain and distraction going. I have two excuses for looking into Jeb Bush. One is that I've been collecting the evidence that Hillary cannot be a lesser evil than any living human, and campaigning for No More Bushes or Clintons. The other is that I only read Jeb Bush: Outed because I've long liked the author, Stephen Go
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 15, 2014 The Genius of Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, who lived from October 27, 1466, to July 12, 1536, faced censorship in his day, and has never been as popular among the rich and powerful as has his contemporary Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli. But at a distance of half a millennium, we ought to be able to judge work on its merit -- and we ought to have regular celebrations of Erasmus around the world.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 17, 2015 A Quiz to See if U.S. Schools Taught You State Propaganda
U.S. schools provide a great deal of useful information, but also leave out a great deal. Please see whether you can answer the following questions before scrolling down and clicking a link at the bottom for the answers. How many can your kids answer? Can your kids' teachers answer them? Can your parents answer them? Can your uncle who tells you whom to vote for and what to think answer them?
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 19, 2021 Irresponsible Hatecraft and Proper Drone Murders
The reality, of course, has been decades of endless drone murders, including "signature strikes" and "double taps" targeting mostly unidentified people and sometimes identified people who could easily have been arrested had there not been a preference for murdering them and anyone nearby them.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 18, 2008 Ending the War Without End
The three participants in the third U.S. presidential debate last week pretended Iraq didn't exist, but if you go to a rally of supporters for either candidate it's the top issue talked about. Baghdad, a city in ruins, divided into ethnically cleansed fiefdoms of rubble, rats, and open sewage, a place where one risks death by walking outside, is managing major rallies of tens of thousands of people in opposition to the treaty
SHARE Thursday, January 26, 2023 Video and Text: The Monroe Doctrine and World Balance
The task before the United States is to end its Monroe Doctrine, and to end it not only in Latin America but globally, and to not only end it but to replace it with the positive actions of joining the world as a law-abiding member.
(12 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 7, 2008 Conyers Says He's on Edge of Starting Impeachment
Conyers asked "So how would it look if I allowed two women to push me over the edge?" Conyers leaned out of his chair for dramatic effect.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 8, 2010 Congressman, Vote No on Afghan War Escalation
Testimony to be hand-delivered and presented orally at a forum hosted by Congressman Bill Delahunt in Falmouth, Mass., this Sunday. The public is encouraged to attend. The article could be tweaked for any congress member, and I'd be glad to help you tweak it for yours.--DS
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 30, 2015 Viet Nam a Half Century Later
Jimmy Carter called a war waged in Vietnam by the United States -- a war that killed 60,000 Americans and 4,000,000 Vietnamese, without burning down a single U.S. town or forest -- "mutual" damage.
SHARE Wednesday, July 6, 2016 The Activist as a Young Girl
Clare Hanrahan's memoir The Half Life of a Free Radical: Growing Up Irish Catholic in Jim Crow Memphis is a remarkable feat: part Jack Kerouac, part Dorothy Day, part Howard Zinn, and a bit of Forest Gump.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 6, 2018 Silicon Valley Will Not Save You from the Surveillance State
There was something quite odd about the very welcome news that some Google employees were objecting to a military contract, namely all the other Google military contracts. My sense of the oddness of this was heightened by reading Yasha Levine's new book, Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet.
SHARE Monday, August 30, 2021 The Washington Post's Case Against Democracy
The Washington Post has been a leading promoter of the Rules Based Order, which some have confused with a pro-democracy initiative. The Post has, however, assembled a powerful case against democracy, that we all need to take seriously if we want to be, you know, serious.
SHARE Tuesday, January 31, 2012 A Crazy Republican Attack That Obama Himself Agrees With
Imagine if a bunch of the craziest war-hungry Republicans in the House filmed themselves in a nutty bat-guano video packed with lies addressed to the President of the United States. And then imagine President Barack Obama almost immediately agreeing with them. I can think of two ways in which such a series of events could go unnoticed, as it just has.
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 28, 2010 Don't You Know That You Can Count Me Out - In
Ted Rall's new book "The Anti-American Manifesto" advocates for violent revolution, even if we have to join with rightwingers and racists to do it, and even if we have no control over the outcome which could easily be something worse than what we've got. We have a moral duty, Rall argues, to kill some people.
SHARE Tuesday, October 6, 2015 Can Corporatized Universities Allow Criticism of Israel?
The University of California is seeking to ban criticism of Israel. This is a widespread phenomenon in the United States, as attested by two new reports and cases like that of Steven Salaita, author of Uncivil Rights: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 28, 2016 Arms Dealing Is Subject of Hollywood Comedy
The new Hollywood movie War Dogs is a comic biopic or a biographical crime war comedy-drama film but always described as some sort of comedy.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 24, 2021 Only Rogue States Have Nuclear Weapons
From January 18 to February 14, four large billboards are going up around Seattle that proclaim "Nuclear Weapons Are Now Illegal. Get them out of Puget Sound!"
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 30, 2016 Psst. Slip This Onto Obama's Teleprompter in Hiroshima
Thank you. Thank you for welcoming me to this hallowed ground, given meaning like the fields of Gettysburg by those who died here, far more than any speech can pretend to add.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 2, 2010 PA to Get Healthcare First?
I've been writing about various states just beginning campaigns for single-payer healthcare. Pennsylvania is on the cusp of completing one.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, May 3, 2010 Liz Holtzman for New York Attorney General (And Watch Out Wall Street)
But there's a weakness in the master plan for Goldman Sachs' domination of the world: Wall Street is in New York State, and the leading candidate for New York State Attorney General is Elizabeth Holtzman.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 14, 2019 It's the Emoluments, Stupid. Impeach for Iran.
The constitutional ban on receiving gifts or benefits while in office from the U.S. government or state governments (domestic "emoluments" Article II, Section 1) is absolute, not waivable by Congress, and not subject to proving any particular corrupting influence.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 22, 2023 Nations' Governments Need Unarmed Defense Plans
A properly prepared unarmed defense department (something that might require a major investment of 2 or 3 percent of a military budget) could make a nation ungovernable if attacked by another country or a coup d'e'tat and therefore immune from conquest.
SHARE Monday, September 26, 2011 When the World Outlawed War
In 1927 and 1928 a hot-tempered Republican from Minnesota named Frank, who privately cursed pacifists, managed to persuade nearly every country on earth to ban war.
SHARE Monday, October 27, 2014 Israeli Chooses "Honorable Life" Over Joining Military
Danielle Yaor is 19, Israeli, and refusing to take part in the Israeli military. She is one of 150 who have committed themselves, thus far, to this position:
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 20, 2015 Why I Oppose the Genocide Prevention Act
Only a non-patriot or someone with a bit of respect for the Bill of Rights would have opposed the Patriot Act.
Only a child-hater or someone with a bit of respect for public education would have opposed the No Child Left Behind Act.
And only a genocide-supporter or someone who's fed up with endless aggressive foreign wars would oppose the forthcoming Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act from Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD).
SHARE Thursday, January 31, 2019 Congress Finds its War Powers and Weaknesses
It's possible that the U.S. Congress will for the first time use the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to end a war the one on Yemen. This would be wonderful. There are some caveats.
SHARE Tuesday, December 28, 2021 Surveillance Concerns: The Good, the Bad, and the Xenophobic
It seems to me that we should talk about the surveillance of people separately from talking about international cyber-attacks and militarism. Everyone seems to do a much better job at the former.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 9, 2008 AP Exclusive: Documents Say Candidate Near Insanity
United States Senator John McCain, according to the documents obtained, has begun referring to Americans as "my fellow prisoners," and adopting the habit of denying prisoners names. McCain now refers to his opponent, Senator Barack Obama, as "that one."
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 23, 2014 War Culture
According to a book by George Williston called This Tribe of Mine: A Story of Anglo Saxon Viking Culture in America, the United States wages eternal war because of its cultural roots in the Germanic tribes that invaded, conquered, ethnically cleansed, or -- if you prefer -- liberated England before moving on to the slaughter of the Native Americans and then the Filipinos and Vietnamese and on down to the Iraqis.
SHARE Tuesday, September 27, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Benjamin Madley on the California Indian Catastrophe
Benjamin Madley is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is also chair of American Indian Studies. He discusses his new book, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe.
(9 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 15, 2009 Asking Republicans for a Favor
And, like you, I think President Barack Obama has way, way, way too much power. But, unlike you, I'm not principally to blame for that.
SHARE Monday, October 20, 2008 Powell Not Qualified for Government Work
Barack Obama would like to bring Colin Powell into his new administration. But Americans consider Powell only marginally more credible than how the rest of the world views him, and the rest of the world thinks he lies like a rug. Powell either wholeheartedly backed the biggest crime thus far this century, or he secretly opposed it but worked to make it happen anyway. I'm not sure which is worse, but either disqualifies him.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 6, 2013 Beginning the Ending of War
This article is the Introduction to the new book War No More: The Case for Abolition, published in October 2013.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 21, 2016 RNC War Party, DNC War Makers
Are the most rabid war supporters on one side and the most dependable war makers getting nominated by the other?
SHARE Monday, September 7, 2020 Monopoly: Root of All Evil
The Monopoly game originally had an anti-monopoly, pro-cooperation (not corporation, COOPeration!) version. Somebody should revive it, along with the understanding of the game as a warning of horrific evils, not just arcane Wall Street issues, and not just an opportunity to inculcate greed or generate fun family arguments.
SHARE Monday, October 12, 2020 Military Bases Never Go Unused
In his new book, The United States of War, David Vine cites research by the U.S. Army showing that since the 1950s, a U.S. military presence has correlated with the U.S. military starting conflicts. Vine modifies a line from Field of Dreams to refer not to a baseball field but to bases: "If you build them, wars will come."
(50 comments) SHARE Monday, June 9, 2008 Impeachment Happening in Congress Right Now!
Congressman Dennis Kucinich is on the floor of the House of Representatives right now introducing 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 1, 2010 After Throwing Shoes at Bush, Where Is al-Zaidi Now?
Muntadhar al-Zaidi famously threw his shoes at President George W. Bush in December 2008, kicking off a stream of shoe-throwing protests around Iraq and the world.
SHARE Monday, May 20, 2013 CIA: An Idea Whose Time Has Gone
There's a contradiction built into every campaign promise about transparent government beyond the failure to keep the promises.
SHARE Wednesday, March 20, 2019 Five Benefits of Life Without NATO
This week, war industry employee Hans Binnendijk claimed in the weapons-advertisement conveyance Defense News that we all get five big benefits from NATO:
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, February 29, 2016 How a Hillary or Bernie Government Would Relate to the World
By world standards, a U.S. government led by President Bernie Sanders would be exceptionally militarized and very much an outlier in terms of its disregard for the standards of international law and its lack of respect for the sovereignty of other nations.
By comparison to a U.S. government led by a hyper-militarist President Hillary Clinton, a Bernie government would be the peaceful, law-abiding, and humanitarian Age of...
SHARE Friday, November 18, 2016 Born on Home Plate
Remember the satirical "Billionaires for Bush" protesters? Around this time in 2008 I asked them to become Oligarchs for Obama, and they refused. But I predict Tycoons for Trump will be born this month. Inequality, like war and climate destruction, has its face now.
SHARE Monday, June 11, 2018 The World According to Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh's new memoir, Reporter: A Memoir, occasionally notes the failure of the exposure of wrong-doing to result in accountability or policy reforms. That's the closest the book generally comes to touching on any motivation behind Hersh's work related to ending war or torture or any other evil.
SHARE Monday, September 17, 2018 Health Professionals Tackle War
Preventing War and Promoting Peace: A Guide for Health Professionals is a valuable new book edited by William Wiist and Shelley White. The book is a collection of writings by health professionals and peace professionals.
SHARE Monday, May 4, 2009 An Even Worse Bybee Memo
Jay Bybee wrote another memo that nobody has noticed, one purporting to authorize crimes far worse than torture, the same crimes the torture was itself intended to create false justifications for.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 8, 2011 Try Not to Think of a Newt
The current President and Congress are destroying our Constitutional rights, our planet's climate, and the vestiges of a social safety net, and you are obsessing over a freak show of self-hating homosexuals and anti-intellectual intellectuals jumping through hoops in a corporate media circus with Ringmaster Donald Trump. Is this a good use of your time?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 11, 2016 One City Is Following Through on Protests of Confederate Monuments
Charlottesville is a diverse, enlightened, and progressive college town in Virginia with its public spaces dominated by war memorials, in particular memorials to Confederate soldiers not from Charlottesville who represent a five-year moment in the centuries of this place's history, as viewed by one wealthy white male racist donor at another moment in the 1920s.
SHARE Friday, June 17, 2011 Bloombergvilles of the Future
We're years behind Tunisia and Egypt in public understanding of how government of, by, and for the people works, but some in the United States have been inspired and begun forming a path that has real potential. In New York City, students, academics, activists, and workers have joined together to resist the global-national-local agenda of plutocracy being pushed by Mayor Bloomberg.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, March 17, 2014 From Helen to Hillary: Women in War
Women have proved capable of doing just what millions of men have done. Should we be proud?
SHARE Sunday, February 12, 2023 Through Cold and Snow, and Unarmed, People Try to Keep Their Mountain Out of War
"The military exercise in Montenegro has ended and NATO soldiers have left the military barracks of Kolašin. However, we fear that this is just a preparation for a much more serious military training in May, when we expect a much more dangerous aggression and a real threat to Sinjajevina. . . . we are ready to stand in front of their plans and that they will only be able to shoot on Sinjajevina through dead bodies."
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, July 16, 2007 Orange Revolution
Enough is enough, and this July 23rd we will launch a new phase in the movement for peace and justice.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, December 17, 2007 Italians Block Construction of US Military Base
The people of the northern Italian city of Vicenza, with help from activists around Italy, the rest of Europe, and even in the United States, are continuing to block the proposed construction of a new U.S. military base on their soil.
(13 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 27, 2008 The Dangerous Theism of Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges recently published an article called "The Dangerous Atheism of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris," but he failed to include in it any indication of what he thinks is dangerous about their atheism.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 12, 2009 If the Congressional Progressive Caucus Were Progressive
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has 82 members, 81 in the House and 1 in the Senate, but has taken the anti-progressive onslaught of recent years lying down.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, August 20, 2012 You Say You Want a Revolution of Values?
I spoke this past weekend at the Kateri Peace Conference in upstate New York along with Kathy Kelly, John Horgan, Ellen Grady, James Ricks, Matt Southworth, Walt Chura, and many others. Watch for the video, because a terrific discussion took place around a series of questions posed by the event organizers. The following are some of the initial responses I had prepared
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 24, 2021 War: Ever More Present and Absent
In many ways, war is ever more and less visible. And, oddly, the ubiquity of war celebration has made war so unquestionable that there are few objections when war is not mentioned even on occasions when it should be.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, September 7, 2009 At the Beck and Call of a Sunshine Patriot
Fox News screaming head Glenn Beck now tells President Obama to fire White House employees, and Obama obeys. While Obama presumably believes obedience will cause Beck to like him and begin praising him, Beck is building a list of additional people whose heads he will demand and denouncing Obama as hiding vast secrets by having complied with the demand to fire Van Jones.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 19, 2014 House Bans War Powers Resolution Actions
The U.S. House of Representatives has not just left town, but prior to leaving passed a rule preventing any member from using the War Powers Resolution to force Congress to return and vote on war.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 27, 2015 War: Legal to Criminal and Back Again
Virtually everyone has no idea that there is a law on the books banning all war. And when a person finds out, he or she typically takes no more than a few minutes to dismiss the fact as meaningless.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, January 16, 2009 Lee Rejects Bush's 3-More-Years-in-Iraq Treaty
Congresswoman Barbara Lee has just reintroduced a resolution opposing the treaty Bush made with his puppet government in Iraq to supposedly legitimize three more years of war.
SHARE Wednesday, March 10, 2021 Brazil in the World
Next only to the worst destroyers of the earth's climate slowing their destructive activities, one of the best steps that could be taken for this planet might be for the destroyers of the Amazon rain forests to knock it off. They're led by one of the world's leading buffoonish fascist demagogues, who goes by the name Bolsonaro.
SHARE Sunday, October 16, 2022 Ten Worst National Anthems
There's probably not a corner of the Earth lacking talented, creative, and wise composers of lyrics for songs. It's unfortunate that no nation has been able to locate any of them to assist with its national anthem.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 27, 2009 Torture Is Foreplay for War
When did recent U.S. torture begin on a major scale? When September 11, 2001, provided a weak excuse to attack Iraq, an excuse that would need some bolstering. When did Bybee send the CIA a recipe for torturing Abu Zubaydah? A week after the Downing Street meeting.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 11, 2012 Israel Upside Down
Miko Peled has written a perfect book for people, including Israelis, who have always heard that the Israeli government can do no wrong.
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 4, 2013 A Modest Proposal for Syria
It is a melancholy object to those who view videos of Damascus, when they see the streets, the roads, and doorways, crowded with the bodies of those reportedly killed with the wrong weapons by the wrong people.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 9, 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for Peace
The 2015 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday morning to "the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011." The Nobel Committee's statement goes on to actually cite Nobel's will, which Nobel Peace Prize Watch (NobelWill.org) and other advocates have been insisting be followed.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 31, 2007 Gonzales, Pelosi, and the Survival of Congress
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today that if she were not Speaker she would probably back impeachment. Other Congress Members are of course free to do what even she admits she would do in their position. They should, I think, start taking her advice and ignoring her ban on impeachment.
SHARE Tuesday, June 12, 2018 Let's Continue Progress Toward Peace in Korea
Less than a year ago, President Donald Trump was threatening North Korea with "fire and fury."
Today such threats are completely absent from his remarks and tweets.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 16, 2018 Corbyn v Corker: UK wants representation, US royalty
Five years ago, the British Parliament said no to an attack on Syria that its prime minister wanted to join the U.S. president in launching. That action, combined with public pressure, was instrumental in getting the U.S. Congress to make clear that it would say no as well, were it absolutely forced to -- you know -- admit it existed and do anything at all. And that was key to preventing the attack.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 18, 2014 No More Khirbet Khizehs
But what if the truth was always marching naked down the street with trumpets sounding?
SHARE Wednesday, October 26, 2022 Never Withdraw a Demand for Diplomacy
Is it really going to be unacceptable to have a preference for peace? Must it be forbidden to want life on Earth protected from nuclear war? Should we start scratching off "peace" on all "Peace on Earth" holiday decorations now?
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 7, 2008 They Lived to Tell: Winter Soldier
Last March, veterans of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan gathered to talk about what they'd seen and done and survived. The event was called "Winter Soldier" and the soldiers' testimony is recorded in a powerful new book: "Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations," by Iraq Veterans Against the War and Aaron Glantz.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 27, 2010 Newspaper Truthiness
The Cleveland Plain Dealer is the latest in a series of major newspapers around the country that have announced a partnership with a group called PolitiFact which will aid them in the innovative practice of letting readers know whether statements made by politicians are true or not.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, November 30, 2009 Afghanistan: Our 177th Colony
During a televised football game on Sunday, an announcer welcomed the members of the U.S. military viewing the game in 177 nations around the world. When the news came on, the topic was the same one it's been for weeks, speculation as to whether and how much a single individual will escalate war by sending tens of thousands of additional troops to nation number 177, Afghanistan.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 24, 2010 Frank Olson, Enemy Combatant
If you haven't read "A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments," by H.P. Albarelli Jr., I recommend doing so right away.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 29, 2012 The Statues in Our Public Spaces Lie
There are lies of omission as well as commission, and the statues in Charlottesville, Va. -- typical of other towns -- do both.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, July 20, 2018 Tell Israel to Allow Thinking in Its Schools
Israel has passed a law allowing its Minister of Education to ban from its schools any person or group who criticizes Israel -- apparently something that no teachers or students in Israel are supposed to do either (though some do).
SHARE Friday, March 1, 2019 Are We Anti-Empire or Anti-War?
Obviously many of us are both. I have zero use for either empire or war. But I'm using those tags as shorthand for two groups that sometimes unite and sometimes do not in their advocacy efforts.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 12, 2009 Signing Statementing Our Way to Empire
President Obama's second signing statement has generated a great deal of news coverage referring to it as his first. And the coverage largely suffers from the shadow of Obama's predecessor (and of Bush's fat sidekick), not to mention the shadow of Obama's recent statement about signing statements.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 7, 2010 We Need Government Funded Medias
What it would have cost us to publicly fund independent media that would have prevented the invasion of Iraq wouldn't amount, in a year, to what we spend on a month of occupying that country.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 21, 2014 Why I Don't Want to See the Drone Memo
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us a secret memo that gets us out of the bit about Thou-shalt-not-kill.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, July 25, 2016 DNC Now Less Popular Than Atheism
So, the "neutral" DNC secretly plotted to hurt Bernie Sanders' campaign by getting him asked if he was an atheist. Did the DNC succeed in this?
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 4, 2021 Biden Finally Lifts Sanctions Against ICC As Demanded by World BEYOND War
After months of demand from World BEYOND War and others, the Biden administration has finally lifted Trump-imposed sanctions on the ICC, stating a preference for a subtler approach to imposing lawlessness in the name of upholding the rule of law.
SHARE Friday, May 14, 2021 For Okinawa, Rahm Would Be a Knee on the Neck
If you don't know much about Japan (and neither does Rahm Emanuel, the reported nominee for U.S. ambassador) a few relevant facts are these:
SHARE Sunday, August 31, 2014 A New Calendar of Holidays
A new calendar of peace holidays has just been published. And none too soon, if you've noticed the epidemic of military holidays around us.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, August 28, 2009 Bush Tortured
It seems almost trivial to accuse someone who launched an illegal war that has killed over a million people of torture. But if we are going to prosecute the lowest ranked torturers, it makes sense to look up the chain of command.
SHARE Sunday, October 30, 2016 All Governments Lie, The Movie
Picture, if you will, video footage of vintage (early 2016) Donald Trump buffoonery with the CEO of CBS Leslie Moonves commenting on major media's choice to give Trump vastly more air time than other candidates: "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS."
SHARE Tuesday, September 7, 2021 Atheism Could Save Journalism, Democracy, and Your Family
I know, I know, journalism is so bad you don't really want it saved or really see what saving it would mean much less want it saved by some evil abomination like atheism. And we've never actually had democracy. And I've got no business mentioning your family, especially in the same breath as something as disgusting as atheism. But hear me out.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 10, 2014 Stop the Smart Wars
Remarks at event for WorldBeyondWar.org in Washington, D.C., on August 9, 2014.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 10, 2015 The Bravery of Vince Bugliosi
Vince had a remarkable skill as a prosecutor and a public speaker. He could be very persuasive. He could set aside everything but the most critical piece of information and then hammer at that piece like a sculptor. In doing so he could reach a wide audience in a persuasive manner without unnecessarily putting anyone off.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 26, 2018 What Mass Killers Tend to Have in Common
It may almost seem too obvious to mention, but I don't think that's why we so seldom mention it. I don't mean being male, or being mentally disturbed, or having been cruel to women, or living in places like the United States where it's easy to acquire weapons of war. These and many other factors are very significant and very often discussed, as they should be, when we consider mass killings. There's something else ...
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 20, 2007 Peace Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
If you haven't already, you really should read Chris Hedges' book "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning." The portrait of war and wartime propaganda and emotion is brilliant and deadly accurate. But the headline is misleading. War does not give us lasting solid self-assured meaning. War gives us a temporary high that is rooted in desperate self-deception.
SHARE Wednesday, July 8, 2015 Peace Lessons
I just read what may be the best introduction to peace studies I've ever seen. It's called Peace Lessons, and is a new book by Timothy Braatz. It's not too fast or too slow, neither obscure nor boring. It does not drive the reader away from activism toward meditation and "inner peace," but begins with and maintains a focus on activism and effective strategy for revolutionary change in the world on the scale that is needed.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 12, 2015 A Peace Activist Leads the Labour Party
I wonder if people in the United States understand what it means that the Labour Party in London now has a peace activist in charge of it. Jeremy Corbyn does not resemble any U.S. politicians. He doesn't favor "only the smart wars" or prefer drone murders to massive invasions. Corbyn opposes wars, and he works to end militarism.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 9, 2017 Good Riddance to Robert E. Lee
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, the city of Charlottesville, Va., city council has voted to remove an imposing statue of Robert E. Lee (and the horse he never rode in on) from Lee Park, and to rename and redesign the park.
SHARE Tuesday, April 10, 2018 A Poor People's Campaign Against War
Movements that are serious about human survival, economic justice, environmental protection, the creation of a good society, or all of the above, address the problem of militarism. Movements that claim to be comprehensive yet run screaming from any mention of the problem of war are not serious.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 25, 2022 To Send Weapons and Troops to Ukraine You'd Have to Be a Stupid Son of a Biden
The U.S. government's internal memos said that the only way to get Iraq to use its weapons if it even had any would be to attack it. The U.S. government's public statements were that Iraq certainly had weapons and therefore must be attacked. The U.S. government itself had every single one of the weapons in question, and knew Iraq used to have some of them because the U.S. had provided them.
SHARE Thursday, December 27, 2018 Charlottesville As Cartoon
Here in Charlottesville, as in most places, we like our stories simple. Most books by local author John Grisham have good guys and bad guys. When a UVa sports team wins, everybody says "Yay, we won!" When it loses, three-quarters of the people say "Boo, we lost!" Reality that gets messier than a coyote and roadrunner adventure gives us trouble.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 22, 2015 Living With Racism in the USA
As an opponent of murder in any form, my first response to this topic is usually: Take the guns away! Hatred doesn't kill people -- hatred in people with guns kills people! But of course I'd love to take the hatred away as well and get the gun deaths down to accidents, suicides, and non-hate crimes.
SHARE Monday, November 21, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Greg Palast on Stripping 7 Million Voters from Rolls, Swinging Election
Greg Palast is an investigative reporter, whose news-breaking stories appear on BBC Television and in The Guardian and Rolling Stone Magazine. Palast has released a new movie: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits, based on his books. Palast says that the recent U.S. election was in fact rigged. We discuss how.
(13 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 23, 2007 We Have Nothing But Fear Itself
But most Americans appear paralyzed by fear. And that includes many Americans with the power to put a halt to our slide into martial law.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, October 3, 2008 The Day Hank Paulson Lied
A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
Seeing houses used to make me smile.
And I knew if I got a loan
That I could call some house my own
And, maybe, we'd be happy for a while.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 27, 2013 Why I'm Attending the Dedication of the Bush Lie Bury
On April 25th the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and General Rehabilitation Project will be dedicated in Dallas, Texas. It takes up 23 acres at Southern Methodist University, 23 acres that neither humanity nor any other species may ever reclaim for anything decent or good.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 9, 2022 Treaties, Constitutions, and Laws Against War
There are international treaties that make wars and even the threat of war illegal, national constitutions that make wars and various activities that facilitate wars illegal, and laws that make killing illegal with no exceptions for the use of missiles or the scale of the slaughter.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 25, 2006 Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld to Be Prosecuted by Ed Asner
The evidence that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld lied us into a war is overwhelming but also dry and dense. But imagine seeing it presented coherently and systematically in a dramatic performance full of humor and emotion.
SHARE Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Italy to Declare Independence from U.S. Military
Do they have a fourth of July in Italy? That's not a trick question. This July 4th, Italians plan to gather in Vicenza to take nonviolent action aimed at freeing Italy from U.S. occupation and opposing the proposed construction of an enormous new U.S. military base in a town already swarming with U.S. troops stationed at existing bases.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 11, 2014 CNN: Palestinians Want to Die
In this latest assault on Gaza, Israel had by Thursday already killed 69 Palestinians including 22 children and 13 women, plus 469 wounded including 166 children and 85 women, and 70 houses destroyed. These numbers have since increased significantly.
SHARE Saturday, October 13, 2018 We Need a New Armistice Day
Remarks at the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, Calif., on October 12, 2018.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 22, 2022 Don't Overlook NATO's Successes
I'm hearing a lot of talk about U.S. and NATO failures, so I want to call attention to the successes. Feel free to cheer wildly for each one.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 23, 2008 Foreclose on the White House
If you've lost your house to a predatory lender and you ask your congress member to impeach Bush and Cheney for your loss, will they look at you like you're crazy? That depends entirely on how many of you are asking.
SHARE Friday, January 16, 2009 Let Judgment Be Bush's History
History cannot be the judge of Bush and Cheney. The corporate news really is the first draft of history, and there will be no magical leap from its dishonesty to an honest account.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 30, 2007 Pelosi, Conyers, the People, and Impeachment
At stake is not just an offensive use of signing statements. At stake is accountability for (and I am neither exaggerating nor using metaphor) – at stake is accountability for mass murder.
SHARE Wednesday, February 25, 2015 Not a Bug Splat, Not Chattel
A drone killer must know that children have eyes and noses and mouths, hair and fingers. But this artwork presents it to the troubled brain of the humanization dependent observer.
And what if you want to know more about the humans inhabiting Pakistan? More than just a face in a photograph?
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, August 14, 2015 Corporate Media Crap Coverage of Sanders Is Norm
There are now articles about the predictable fluff BS horserace personality lifestyle crap coverage by the corporate media of the Bernie Sanders for president campaign (and articles about the predictable non-coverage of the Jill Stein for president campaign).
SHARE Monday, July 17, 2006 Rupert Murdoch Hosted Hillary Fundraiser
On Monday, July 17, 2006, at Fox News headquarters in New York City, Rupert Murdoch hosted a fundraiser breakfast for Hillary Clinton. Then he rushed off to a fundraiser lunch for John McCain, and Hillary rushed off to announce her unqualified support for Israel's and Bush's war policies.
SHARE Friday, April 2, 2021 Video: CrossTalk | Democracy vs Autocracy
Historically speaking, the Cold War was a great ideological confrontation. Western liberalism vs Soviet communism. According to Joe Biden the great geopolitical struggle of our time is democracy vs autocracy. For Biden we are in another great ideological struggle. But there is a difference: the west, particularly the U.S. is the only ideological actor. CrossTalking with Rick Rozoff, Bruce Gagnon, and David Swanson.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 5, 2008 Subpoena Dementia
Subpoenas? What are those? Miers? Rove? Who are they? Are they from Chicago? Do they believe in change?
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 16, 2014 Watchers of the Sky Falls in a Pit
Watchers of the Sky is beloved by the U.S. corporate media because it opposes genocide, not war.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 19, 2018 Worldwide Hurricane
In planning a conference that is coming up in Toronto, I've been seeking out stories of peace and justice in Toronto and Canada. Wow are there a lot of them, as well as plenty of war and injustice as well. One of my favorites has got to be the story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Terry "Typhoon" Swinton, who got his name from Carter, sent me a copy of the book he co-authored with Sam Chaiton in 1991.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 4, 2020 Both Dangerous: Trump and Jeffrey Goldberg
If we were to look beyond words to actions, there would be no doubt that virtually all U.S. politicians have, in effect, taken the Trump/Kissinger view of U.S. troops for as long as there have been U.S. troops.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 3, 2021 Blinken Waves Guns, Promising Peace
U.S. Secretary of State, and supporter of wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine, a man who once backed dividing Iraq into three countries, proponent of not really ending endless wars, cofounder of revolving-door dealer in shameless profiteering from government connections for weapons companies WestExec Advisors, Antony Blinken made a speech on Wednesday.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 14, 2013 How Your Town Can Stop Drones
Local resolutions have helped advance many issues, including war opposition, when they've been passed in large numbers.
SHARE Saturday, July 25, 2015 Hey, I Have an Idea Where They Can Stick the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia campaigned on green energy (and I hear some people may have believed him, though I haven't met one) and then immediately backed the proposed construction of a giant fracked-gas pipeline through the mountains and farms of Virginia to carry fossil fuels from West Virginia to North Carolina.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 7, 2008 Cindy, Charlotte, and Our Constitution
As you watch the presidential debates, here's a game to play that won't even get you drunk (unless you want to add tequila shots to it).
(10 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 15, 2009 Holder Will Have to Prosecute
After comments made in his confirmation hearing, Attorney General nominee Eric Holder will be hard pressed not to prosecute Bush, Cheney, and their co-conspirators, or to appoint a special prosecutor.
SHARE Thursday, March 6, 2014 Thermonuclear Monarchy and Revolution
So now we (or at least the 0.03% of us who care to hunt for it) discover that U.S. military spending is not actually being cut at all, but increasing.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 2, 2008 When Will We Liberate the Iraqis?
I know, I know, Bush liberated the Iraqis. But when will we liberate them from Bush's liberation?
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Is Murder the New Torture?
Both tools, murder and torture, produce exactly the same amount of useful intelligence. Both tools scare the hell out of people abroad and at home. Both tools serve to teach a domestic audience that certain types of people are not fully people and cannot be dealt with humanely.
SHARE Wednesday, May 11, 2022 What If Western Saharans Mattered?
Somebody explain to me why U.S. citizens should have to abandon their lives and go sit by as shields, as lives-that-matter, in Western Sahara, to prevent the thugs of a corrupt billionaire from brutalizing people with U.S. weapons and U.S. backing.
SHARE Monday, December 29, 2014 Renaming Afghan War, Renaming Murder
The U.S.-led NATO war on Afghanistan has lasted so long they've decided to rename it, declare the old war over, and announce a brand new war they're just sure you're going to love.
SHARE Monday, July 6, 2015 Mapping Military Madness: 2015 Update
Once again this year, the clear winner, in not just women's soccer and incarceration, but also in militarism, is the United States of America, sweeping nearly every category of military insanity with seemingly effortless ease.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, March 4, 2016 Everybody Turn Out for a Day of Peace and Solidarity in New York
What happens when there are endless wars accompanied by militarized policing, spreading racism, erosion of civil rights, and concentration of wealth, but the only news is election news, and none of the candidates wants to talk about shrinking the world's largest military?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 4, 2017 Yes, Positivity, Pangloss, Partisanship, Propaganda, and Populism
Eight years ago Yes! Magazine published a political platform of progressive policies, along with polling showing strong majority support for each proposal. Now, eight years later, we can show almost total failure to advance any of the proposals, most of which were focused on the U.S. federal government.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, December 3, 2018 Are Genes Pseudo-Science Driven by Racist Patriarchal Plutocrats?
A new film called A Dangerous Idea argues that the concept of the gene will be looked back on (if humanity lives long enough) in the way that we look back on claims of "royal blood" and skull size as justifications for power and social status. The film makes the case that eugenics and (its more recent name) genetics has been driven by the same interests as those past claims.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, October 30, 2015 Don't Put Killers on Cereal Boxes
Online petition campaigns were launched this week to stop Wal-Mart from selling Israeli soldier Halloween costumes and to get Wheaties cereal to start putting U.S. soldiers on its cereal boxes -- boxes known for featuring photos of outstanding athletes.
SHARE Sunday, November 21, 2021 What Would Have Worked Better Than Building Back Anything
Did many people, in fact, support Trump's racism? Of course. Did many of them have a latent history of racism and live in a country with a deep history of racism? Of course. But could something completely different from Trump have appealed to them more than Trump did? I think so.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 21, 2016 James Mattis Is a Secretary of Offense
Donald Trump says he wants to stop overthrowing governments and turn toward peace. But not only does he also say he wants to increase the military spending that produces more wars, but he's considering for Secretary of so-called Defense someone whose entire outlook is offensive in every sense of the word.
SHARE Monday, March 6, 2017 Charlottesville to Vote on Opposing Trump Budget
At the March 6, 2017, meeting of the Charlottesville City Council, three members of the council proposed to put on the agenda for a future meeting a vote on a resolution opposing the increased military spending proposed by President Donald Trump.
SHARE Monday, April 13, 2020 The Economic Benefits of a Global Ceasefire
The top benefit we should seek from ceasing firing in wars we cannot afford to continue during a real crisis, and from this pandemic itself, is a new understanding of universality.
SHARE Friday, May 22, 2009 Fantasy Finance and Real Fixes
If you're like me you find it at least a bit disturbing that we're giving trillions of dollars to save the economy to the very people who wrecked it, and more disturbing that we're doing so without any solid basis for expecting to get much of it back and without making fundamental changes to prevent a repetition.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 2, 2009 WAR: It's Not the President's Decision
The U.S. Constitution leaves the decision to wage war to Congress, and Congress can enforce its decision not to wage war by refusing to fund it. Blocking a funding bill for wars requires the House of Representatives alone, and both Democrats and Republicans in the House are rapidly joining us in saying No to war funding.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Kucinich and the Media
Kucinich's cave in is most clearly an argument for media reform and for progressive investment in truly independent media.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 22, 2010 Someone Must Have Been Telling Lies About Joseph K.
What if the beginning read like this: "Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was killed one fine morning." With that kind of beginning, there can be no second sentence, unless the story jumps backward in time.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, May 31, 2010 The Wonders of the American Way of War
I mean, rather, the quiet pausing to marvel in silence, or to ponder along with Engelhardt, the perverse and unnatural wonder that is our war-based society and our war-based economy, beginning perhaps with the wonder that we live in these things unknowingly.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 13, 2012 Veterans For Peace Opposes Military Intervention in Syria
Veterans For Peace urgently calls on the United States and NATO to cease all military activity in Syria, halt all U.S. and NATO shipments of weapons, and abandon all threats to further escalate the violence under which the people of Syria are suffering.
SHARE Thursday, January 29, 2015 Students Save Palestine
In proposing that Congress Members boycott or walk out on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned speech to Congress, expected to push for sanctions if not war on Iran, activists are drawing on actions engaged in by college students in recent years, as they have boycotted or walked out on or disrupted speeches by Israeli soldiers and officials on U.S. campuses.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 17, 2016 Gorbachev Disagrees With Obama on Nukes
Mikhail Gorbachev and Barack Obama have radically different views on what is involved in doing away with nuclear weapons.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 4, 2007 Anti-U.S. Uproar Sweeps Italy
The U.S. government has proposed to make Vicenza, Italy, the largest US military site in Europe, but the people of Vicenza, and all of Italy, have sworn it will never happen.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 22, 2009 No Good War, No Good Drone
Eight years of slaughter, and not so much as a hint at what a "victory" would look like. It's gotten to the point where even polls by Fox News show a majority of Americans against escalating the war in Afghanistan, and polls by more honest organizations show a majority wanting to bring home the troops that are there now.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 28, 2010 A Year of Fall and Decline
The fall and decline of an empire can take many years, but certain "benchmarks" (as imperial courts have been known to call them) can measure the progress in one year alone. Take, for example, the year 2010.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 21, 2021 A Global Demand to 35 Governments: Get Your Troops Out of Afghanistan / A Thank You to 6 That Already Have
The governments of Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mongolia, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, UK, and US all still have troops in Afghanistan and need to remove them.
SHARE Wednesday, June 27, 2012 American Autumn: An Occudoc
Dennis Trainor, Jr., has produced a full-length movie of the Occupy movement, and he's done a hell of a great job.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 1, 2014 The Art of Satyagraha
Michael Nagler has just published The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action, a quick book to read and a long one to digest, a book that's rich in a way that people of a very different inclination bizarrely imagine Sun Tzu's to be.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 6, 2014 Peace Ecology
With serendipitous timing, as a big march for the climate, and various related events, are planned on and around the International Day of Peace, Randall Amster has just published an important book called Peace Ecology.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 28, 2022 Can We Learn Anything From Russian-Canadian Pacifists?
Tolstoy said the Doukhobors belonged to the 25th century. He was talking about a group of people who have traditions of refusing to take part in war, refusing to eat or harm animals or put animals to work, engaging in communal sharing of resources and communal approaches to work, gender equality, and letting deeds speak in place of words not to mention using nudity as a form of nonviolent protest.
SHARE Friday, July 27, 2007 Rep. Bobby Scott Debates Impeachment
Some colleagues and I spent much of Thursday and Friday meeting with Congress Members and their staffers to discuss impeachment. Some of them were on the edge of backing it, others miles away but inching closer. Congressman Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia who serves on the Judiciary Committee, was one of the furthest from backing impeachment but one of the most interesting to debate the topic with.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, January 14, 2011 Why Pentagon Says MLK Would Love War Today
According to the Pentagon's lawyer, Martin Luther King Jr., if alive today, would view the US war on Afghanistan as both the act of a Good Samaritan and as necessary self-defense.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, July 14, 2014 The Kill Team Movie: Show It in Schools
Kill Team is not just a video game anymore, not just the inevitable pairing of two of the most popular words in American English. "Kill Team" is now a movie, and against the odds it's not a celebration of killing, but a particular take on an actual series of events made widely known by Rolling Stone.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 3, 2014 Is There Still Hope for Peace in Ukraine?
The Ukrainian government, like Israel in Gaza, relentlessly goes on bombing residential areas in the eastern regions "to kill the terrorists hiding out there" (but also the civilians living there). The separatists, called "terrorists", are in a siege; to break it, they have launched a bloody counteroffensive to the South, with civilian casualties there, too.
SHARE Monday, November 3, 2014 Things, Not People, You Can Vote For
"Vote. It's the American thing to do!" read an email I received yesterday. Actually it's the just-about-anywhere-else thing to do. U.S. voters lead the world in staying home and not bothering.
SHARE Thursday, July 2, 2009 Waking from Madison's Nightmare
The book I just read is in the running, in my estimation, for second-best text on how to undo the imperial presidency.
SHARE Wednesday, January 27, 2021 Get the Nuclear Weapons Out of Germany
Billboards are going up in Berlin that proclaim "Nuclear Weapons Are Now Illegal. Get Them Out of Germany!"
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 27, 2022 Idiot Anti-Nukers Will Only Have Seconds to Say They Were Right
There's a lot of funny stuff in politics, but the most ludicrous has got to be these holdovers from the 1980s running around warning that we could all die in a nuclear war. The idiots have not realized that nobody cares, that they look like morons, and that they'll only have seconds in which to point out that they were right. What sort of awards do they expect to be given in the space of a half a minute?
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 22, 2015 Are Republicans Evil?
Andrew Bard Schmookler's new book is called What We're Up Against: The Destructive Force at Work in Our World -- And How We Can Defeat It. I'll spare you some suspense; the evil force he has in mind is the Republican Party.
SHARE Saturday, February 16, 2008 Zoe Lofgren, Closet Impeacher
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren wants Cheney and Bush impeached, removed from office, prosecuted, and incarcerated, and she won't admit it.
SHARE Thursday, January 23, 2014 The Thugs of Halftime
Football players are the least of it. Their thoughts would be far more acceptable in prime time than the thoughts of some other people on that field.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 9, 2022 Top 10 Things People Pretend They Don't Know
Not only does it do great damage to pretend that each of these things is false, but the habit of so pretending does great damage, facilitating further pretenses. And the standard created by accepting some of these pretenses makes it harder to reject others.
SHARE Tuesday, March 22, 2022 Supporting Wars But Not Militaries
Dobos sets aside the question of whether any war can be justified, arguing instead that "there may be cases where the costs and risks generated by a military establishment are too great for its existence to be justified, and this is even if we think that some wars are necessary and consistent with the demands of morality."
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 7, 2009 Listen to Francis Boyle
As evidence of Bush and Cheney's crimes is slowly pried loose from President Obama's fingers, it's easy to forget just how long ago numerous articulate voices were identifying and denouncing those crimes, none more so that Francis Boyle, who told Bill O'Reilly on his Fox News show on September 13, 2001:
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 31, 2012 Harry Truman and Memory of Mass Murder
Harry Truman spoke in the U.S. Senate on June 23, 1941: "If we see that Germany is winning," he said, "we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible."
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 15, 2007 John Edwards' Fortress
Glancing through the full alphabet of companies, it is immediately apparent that Fortress represents the polar opposite of an ethical investment opportunity.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Honor the Dead, Add No More to Their Number
Moveon provided me with suggested things to say, but – for better or worse – and with gratitude for their organizing work, I'm going to make a few changes to what they suggested.
SHARE Tuesday, October 27, 2020 Lies and the Fascists Who Believe Them
Next week, if Trump announces that he won the election, his supporters will take it as gospel without wanting proof. But if Biden mumbles that he thinks he just might come out on top once everything is properly considered, his supporters will tentatively attempt some research and calculations. One group is in a church service. The other is at a bingo game.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 14, 2010 Students Versus Senators
As long as we're going to dump most of our money into wars and the military and Wall Street and health insurance bailouts, students are going to have to go into debt to afford college. But it would cost the students less and the government less, if private companies were not permitted to act as middlemen profiting off public loans to students.
SHARE Sunday, March 14, 2010 I'm Down With Dennis
Let me get this straight. The Senate will pass a public option if the House will. And the House will, because it already did. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't allow it. So the mortal enemy of public-option backers is . . . Dennis Kucinich.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 16, 2010 Movement Music
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution," said Emma Goldman, who might also have said "If we don't dance, not enough people will work long and hard enough in our revolution."
SHARE Tuesday, July 30, 2013 A Nuclear Free World
We've managed to outgrow or to come within sight of outgrowing cannibalism, slavery, blood feuds, duels, capital punishment, child labor, tar and feathering, the stocks and pillory, wives as chattel, the punishment of homosexuality, and listening to Rush Limbaugh.
SHARE Thursday, January 2, 2014 The Story of Gaza
Young authors of fiction from Gaza, some of whom say they are finding Palestine on the internet while unable to see it exist in reality, have just published a collection of stories, written in English, marking the five-year anniversary of the 23 days from December 27, 2008, until Obama's inauguration, during which Israel bombed the people of Gaza far more heavily than usual.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, May 5, 2014 United We Stand and Shout and Dance and Make it Better
I'm looking forward to speaking on Saturday, May 10, at the United We Stand Festival in Los Angeles (and at an earlier event) where dozens of speakers and musicians will be standing together against such evils as: "the PATRIOT Act, NDAA, NSA, war on drugs, drones, ... war, GMO, ... central banks, corporatism," and in favor of "Internet freedom, election reform, honest media/music/art, education/student leadership, ...
SHARE Wednesday, January 12, 2022 AUDIO: Veterans For Peace: Panel Discusses VFP Nuclear Posture Review, A Plan for Peace
While the Biden Administration and the military develop their own Nuclear Posture Review which will more than likely support nuclear saber rattling and expansion of the madness of U.S. nuclear weapons, Veterans for Peace has developed an alternative Nuclear Posture Review, an NPR that considers humanity.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 29, 2010 FILIBLUSTER
There's a simple reason why the Democrats in Washington, D.C., can't end the wars or shrink the military or close Guantanamo or legalize union organizing or create a real health coverage system or repeal NAFTA or tax carbon or (fill in the blank).
SHARE Friday, May 22, 2015 On the U.S. Killing of Two Children in Syria
If a target of U.S. aggression can be alleged to have killed children, especially with the wrong kind of weapon, that is used as grounds for war. War is supposed to be the cure for that.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 12, 2016 Talking About Forgiveness
An atheist's sermon on Luke 7: 36-50 delivered at Saint Joan of Arc in Minneapolis, Minn., on June 12, 2016.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, January 23, 2017 The So-Called Intelligence So-Called Community's Dumb Isolated View of the Future
Thank you to Tom Engelhardt for pointing out that the people who couldn't predict the end of the Soviet Union, the crimes of 9-11, the decency of numerous whistleblowers, the election of Donald Trump, the likelihood that utilities in Vermont would point out that they had not been hacked by Russians, or -- I'm willing to bet -- the timing of rush hour in Northern Virginia, have just predicted the shape of the future of all.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 29, 2009 Single Payer Moment
While a Democratic polling firm has just found, as pollsters always do, dramatic public support for public health coverage, Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill appear divided, as they have always been, over whether to take a comprehensive approach to health care.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 24, 2016 Their Mouths Are Moving, or How Can You Tell a Politician Is Lying About War?
Someone asked me to find war lies during the past few years. Perhaps they had in mind the humanitarian pretenses around attacking Libya in 2011 and Iraq in 2014, or the false claims about chemical weapons in 2013, or the lies about an airplane in Ukraine or the endlessly reported Russian invasions of Ukraine. Maybe they were thinking of ...
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 4, 2016 Three Centuries of U.S. Writing Against War
Every student of peace, sanity, or survival, every person interested in the possibility of the United States making its current wars its last seven wars, every believer in the value of wisdom and the written word should pick up a copy of Lawrence Rosendwald's 768-page collection, War No More: Three Centuries of American Antiwar and Peace Writing.
SHARE Tuesday, August 26, 2014 Losing Losers and the Pentagon That Hires Them
At the 200th anniversary of the jackasses of 1812 getting the U.S. capital burned by the British in 1814, I found myself watching a new film by Rory Kennedy called Last Days in Vietnam.
SHARE Monday, October 27, 2014 The Conscience of a Moderate
Angels by the River: A Memoir by James Gustave Speth is pleasantly written but painful to read. Speth knew about the dangers of global warming before the majority of today's climate change deniers were born. He was an advisor to President Jimmy Carter and advised him and the public to address the matter before it became a crisis.
SHARE Tuesday, February 26, 2019 Draft Registration Will Be Either Ended or Imposed on Women
A choice must now be made. It is officially unconstitutional to discriminate against 18-year-old women by not forcing them to sign up to be forced against their will to kill and die for Venezuela's oil or some other noble cause.
SHARE Friday, April 12, 2019 Exporting Dictators
The D.C. area harbors a number of dictators in waiting less well known than Mike Pence.
SHARE Friday, May 6, 2016 Corruption in the Time of Cholera
In 2004, the United States, which had previously occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, kidnapped the president of Haiti, overthrew his government, and sent in United Nations "peace keepers." In 2010, an outbreak of cholera hit Haiti for the first time ever. The disease had previously been unknown in the country.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 23, 2019 U.S. Exports More and More Bullets
When I was a kid there was a local basketball team called the Washington Bullets. The team changed its name when "bullets" became offensive due to the high rate of gun murders in Washington, D.C. This is the same city that to this day has a football team called the Washington Redskins. What offends is not, perhaps, violence, but violence directed at people who matter.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, December 10, 2012 The Normalization of Treason
How did right-wing politics in the United States survive the 1960s and 1970s and thrive beyond? Not only did the wealthy invest in the corruption of politics, but the politicians invested in the normalization of treason.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 23, 2014 Why Risk Prison to Protest Drone Murders? An Activist Explains.
Judging from my email box in recent years -- which often differs on this question with such sources of knowledge as my television or the New York Times -- the conscience of our country lies somewhere near Syracuse, New York.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 10, 2016 How to Counter Recruitment and De-Militarize Schools
U.S. military recruiters are teaching in public school classrooms, making presentations at school career days, coordinating with JROTC units in high schools and middle schools, volunteering as sports coaches and tutors and lunch buddies in high, middle, and elementary schools, showing up in humvees with $9,000 stereos, bringing fifth-graders to military bases for hands-on science instruction, ...
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 15, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Jonathan Simon on How Machines May Have Counted Our Votes Wrong
Jonathan Simon is author of CODE RED: Computerized Election Theft and The New American Century. He serves as Executive Director of Election Defense Alliance, a nonprofit organization founded in 2006 to restore observable vote counting and electoral integrity as the basis of American democracy.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, July 9, 2018 They Went to Jail for Justice
C.J. Hinke has produced probably the best collection I've read of writings by and about conscientious objectors and war refusers behind bars. It's called Free Radicals: War Resisters in Prison.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 6, 2010 Vietghanistan
Allen concludes that Vietnam was ended by three forces: the resistance of the Vietnamese, the peace movement in the United States, and the resistance of soldiers in the U.S. military.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, November 25, 2013 10 More Years in Afghanistan
Measured in financial cost, or death and destruction, Afghanistan is more President Obama's war than President Bush's. Now the White House is trying to keep troops in Afghanistan until "2024 and beyond."
SHARE Thursday, May 21, 2015 What's Baddawi?
On October 29, 1948, the Israeli terrorist group Irgun ethnically cleansed the village of Safsaf in Palestine, lining some 70 men up, shooting them, dumping them in a ditch, and raping three girls. Among the survivors who fled to Lebanon were the grandparents of a young woman in Chicago who has a talent for telling stories in pictures and words.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, February 15, 2016 The Case for War Abolition That You Might Miss
I'm afraid that one of the best books I've read on war abolition may be overlooked by non-Catholics, because its title is Catholic Realism and the Abolition of War (by David Carroll Cochran). The book does draw on Catholic arguments against war and work to rebut Catholic arguments in favor of war, but in my view this enriches the debate and detracts not at all from Cochran's universal argument for the elimination of all war.
SHARE Thursday, April 8, 2021 Biden's Announcement That Trump Got Military Spending Just Right Is Dead Wrong
President Joe Biden is proposing a level of Pentagon spending so close to that of Trump's last year in office that Bloomberg calls it a 0.4% reduction adjusting for inflation while Politico calls it a 1.5% increase and "effectively an inflation-adjusted budget boost."
SHARE Tuesday, July 6, 2021 The Way Between
What if a better approach to raising children than feeding them the muck that makes up war culture but instructing them to not play with guns, were to introduce them to a little peace culture?
SHARE Saturday, March 19, 2022 Ending Slavery in Washington DC and War in Ukraine
Last week I spoke to a very smart class of high school seniors in Washington DC. They knew more and had better questions for me than your average group at any age. But when I asked them to think of a war that was possibly justifiable, the first one somebody said was the U.S. Civil War.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, August 9, 2013 Past Wars on Indians Aren't Even Past
Hammer in hand, one sees nails everywhere. Successful unpunished genocide at home in hand, the Pentagon sees Indian Country on six continents. But don't imagine the U.S. military is finished with the original Indian Country yet, including Native American reservations and territories, and including the places where the rest of us now live.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, October 6, 2014 Operation Odysseus' Butcher Shop
Remember Odysseus, the great Greek hero who went on lots of thrilling adventures on his way home from Troy and kicked a bunch of interloping suitors of his lonely wife out of his house in Ithaca when he got home?
Well, Odysseus didn't actually kick them out, did he? Do you remember what actually happened?
SHARE Monday, October 19, 2015 A Giant Raptor Fueled by Oil Circles the Earth
To the genre of war abolition treatises that everyone should read add A New Era of Nonviolence: The Power of Civil Society Over War by Tom Hastings. This is a peace studies book that truly crosses over into the perspective of peace activism.
SHARE Thursday, June 16, 2016 Brexit Violence Deeply Rooted, With Lessons for U.S.
On Thursday, in a political move more typical of the United States than Europe, a member of the British Parliament was murdered. She was an opponent of Brexit (Britain exiting the European Union), and her murderer reportedly shouted "Britain First!"
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, November 7, 2016 Post-Election To-Do List
1. Stop the efforts to ram through the Trans-Pacific Partnership during the lame duck.
2. Stop the efforts to ram through a supplemental war spending bill for assorted future wars during the lame duck.
3. Stop the efforts to repeal the right to sue Saudi Arabia and other nations for their wars and lesser acts of terrorism during the lame duck
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 11, 2008 Somebody Should Arm the Senate Armed Services Committee
I've never had any use for the Senate Armed Services Committee before, or even for the idea that someone who was armed could provide a service, but the report on U.S. torture policy that the committee released on Thursday is noteworthy.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 12, 2013 Who's Excited About Another Decade in Afghanistan?
With 196 nations in the world and U.S. troops already in at least 177 of them, there aren't all that many available to make war against.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 5, 2014 Valor, Remembrance, and Complicity
November 11th in the United States is marked and marred by a holiday that relatively recently had its name changed to "Veterans Day" and its purpose converted and perverted into celebrating war. This year a "Concert for Valor" will be held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
SHARE Tuesday, December 23, 2014 Resolved: To Stop Imagining that Anything's Been Resolved
The year 2014 will be remembered as yet another year in which we inched closer toward environmental and militarized catastrophe, but also perhaps as a year in which crisis and enlightenment combined to open a few more eyes to the full range of possibilities available.
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 20, 2013 Teach the Children War
The National Museum of American History, and a billionaire who has funded a new exhibit there, would like you to know that we're going to need more wars if we want to have freedom.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 2, 2016 When Charlottesville Was Nuked
Thirty-seven years ago, the United States Congress commissioned and published a work of fiction, an account of what life in Charlottesville, Virginia, might be like during a nuclear war. It's contained in a longer report called The Effects of Nuclear War which came out in May of 1979.
SHARE Monday, October 12, 2020 Top Poisoner of Pacific Is U.S. Military
"We're number one!" The United States famously fails to actually lead the world in anything desirable, but it does lead the world in many things, and one of them turns out to be the poisoning of the Pacific and its islands. And by the United States, I mean the United States military.
SHARE Wednesday, August 1, 2007 34 Congress Members for Impeachment
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D., Wisconsin) and Congressman Donald Payne (D., N.J.) have signed on as cosponsors of H. Res. 333, a bill proposing articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney, according to Congressman Dennis Kucinich's office. Kucinich is the original sponsor of the bill. Baldwin is the fourth member of the House Judiciary Committee to have added her name to the bill.
SHARE Monday, February 7, 2022 What Your Belief in War Against Putin Owes to Male Violence Even If You're Not Male
So, yes, your belief in the need to stand up to Vladimir Putin by threatening war on a distant country full of men, women, and children, owes a great deal to a toxic idea of masculinity that women are largely buying into as the new femininity as well.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 30, 2010 Now We Impeach Jay Bybee
No one disputes that Jay Bybee's name is at the bottom of memos that were, and to some extent still are, treated as laws which legalized aggressive war at the pleasure of a president and a variety of acts of torture. For many months the House Judiciary Committee has had two excuses for not impeaching Judge Bybee, even while proceeding with the impeachments of a judge for groping and another judge for petty corruption.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 18, 2011 It Would Be an Honor
I experienced UVA's honor code as one of the most thrilling discoveries of my life. W&L's has inspired Sessions to write a book.
SHARE Thursday, July 8, 2021 Biden Defends Ending a War He's Not Fully Ending
It's been a dream of peace-loving people everywhere for over 20 years now for a U.S. government to end a war and to speak in support of having done so. Sadly, Biden is only partially ending one of the endless wars, none of the others having yet been fully ended either, and his remarks on Thursday were too glorifying of war to be of much use in the cause of abolishing it.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 15, 2007 Wolf Blitzer Loses Democratic Debate
That does it. It's time for the Democratic Party to stage its own debate, ask its own questions, and offer the video to networks as a completed package. Allowing CNN to not just air a debate but to ask the questions proved on Thursday night (even more dramatically than in the past) to be a soul sickening disaster.
SHARE Tuesday, December 18, 2012 Life in Prison for a Poem
Qatari poet Mohamed Ibn Al Ajami's crime consisted of reciting a poem extolling the courage and values of the popular uprisings in Tunisia.
SHARE Sunday, October 13, 2013 Slavery Was Believed Permanent Longer Than War Has Been
In the late eighteenth century the majority of people alive on earth were held in slavery or serfdom (three-quarters of the earth's population, in fact, according to the Encyclopedia of Human Rights from Oxford University Press).
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 16, 2018 The Self-Psychoanalysis of the American Liberal
What I find most illuminating in the book is the first-person account of an apparent sufferer of PHSD (Post Hillary Stress Disorder).
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 18, 2009 Why Can't We Do to DC What We Did to Seattle?
I've been reading a brand new book called "The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle," which is in large part an analysis of what worked in the protesting of the World Trade Organization 10 years ago. Why is it, I wonder, that activists were able to shut down the center of this major city in Washington state, but for years we have been unable to shut down the center of Washington, D.C., in opposition to wars.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, April 18, 2014 War Is Good for Us, Dumb New Book Claims
Ian Morris has stuck his dog's ear in his mouth, snapped a selfie, and proclaimed "Man Bites Dog." His new book War: What Is It Good For? Conflict and Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots is intended to prove that war is good for children and other living things.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 10, 2015 Video and Audio of Pilots Who Bombed Hospital
There is video and audio. It exists. The Pentagon says it's critically important. Congress has asked for it and been refused. WikiLeaks is offering $50,000 to the next brave soul willing to be punished for a good deed in the manner of Chelsea Manning, Thomas Drake, Edward Snowden, and so many others. You can petition the White House to hand it over here.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 24, 2013 The U.S. Has a Representative Government: The Conference of Mayors
Congress can't break 10 percent approval. Obama's arms shipments to Syria just crack 10 percent, with 11 percent approval. Over 80 percent of Americans in more polls than I can count say over and over again that the government is broken and does not represent us. But when the mayors of the cities of the United States get together nationally one begins to see positions taken, at least rhetorically, that resemble democracy.
SHARE Monday, November 21, 2016 Dear Mr. Trump, About Your 29 Ideas
Regarding your 29 proposals, here's a bit more than just the ranking you asked for. I'll start with the best:
SHARE Thursday, February 28, 2019 We're Asking Charlottesville to Divest from Weapons and Fossil Fuels
Charlottesville, Virginia, has yet to take down its racist statues (the ones all the fuss has been about or any of the other ones). Charlottesville has yet to ban guns from public events. It blames the state legislature in both of those and many other topics. But the City of Charlottesville has our public dollars invested in weapons, and it is perfectly capable of changing that.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, November 3, 2014 Which Is Worse, a Libertarian or a Humanitarian-Warrior?
Is it worse to put into Congress or the White House someone who wants to end wars and dismantle much of the military but also wants to abolish Social Security and Medicare and the Department of Education and several other departments they have trouble remembering the names of, OR someone who just wants to slightly trim all of those departments around the edges while waging countless wars all over the world?
SHARE Wednesday, December 30, 2020 Top 10 Questions for Antony Blinken
Before Antony Blinken can become Secretary of State, Senators must approve. And before that, they must ask questions. Here are some suggestions for what they should ask.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 1, 2006 What Fate Awaits NSA Spying Whistleblower
Can there be any doubt that if the White House finds out who leaked the story of its illegal spying, fierce retribution will follow?
SHARE Tuesday, March 29, 2016 Blowback Denial, Climate Denial, and Apocalypse
Last week Donald Trump suggested something Bernie Sanders would never dare: getting rid of NATO. I took some time to read people's comments and tweets online about it, and a huge number seemed to believe that NATO and the U.S. military have been performing a service for Europe, and that it's time for Europe to pay its own bills. But will someone explain to me what the service is?
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 7, 2021 Opposition to AUKUS Should Inspire Global Opposition to U.S. Empire
At World BEYOND War we are inspired by the organization of events in Australia against the USUKA, er AUKUS, alliance and in agreement with the statement released by Australians for War Powers Reform.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 2, 2008 Citizens Are Sitting In at Nadler's, Request Support
Several activists from World Can't Wait, joined by other antiwar activists are at Jerold Nadler's Brooklyn office today. They don't intend to leave until they get a commitment from Nadler to get impeachment started in the House Judiciary Committee. They are requesting that you put out the word, asking people to call Nadler's offices to make the same demand.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 3, 2016 Oh Frack, President Obama
A new film called Dear President Obama that is narrated by Mark Ruffalo begins very gently, sympathizing with President Obama's supposed need to please his funders and corporate lobbyists. But the story it then begins to present of what the frack president has done to the United States with fracking is absolutely devastating -- as severe and tragic in its way as what the drone president has done abroad.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 3, 2016 But How Do You Use Nonviolence Against a Nuke?
Some of the most misguided questions ever conceived by the human brain take the form of "But how do you use nonviolence against . . ?"
For example, fill in the blank with ISIS. How do you use nonviolence against ISIS?
Now you're supposed to picture yourself with a knife at your throat trying to resist it nonviolently. Then you're supposed to burst into a fit of laughter.
But how would you resist that knife violently?
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 10, 2010 War Is Over (If They Mean It)
Sixty-five congress members, including 60 Democrats and 5 Republicans, voted to end the occupation of Afghanistan on Wednesday.
SHARE Saturday, September 26, 2020 What Trump and Biden Should Have Done in War on Vietnam
Donald Trump and Joe Biden were athletes who got deferments and dubious medical-based exemptions to participating in the mass slaughter of Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian men, women, and children.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 12, 2009 Wars or Jobs: Decide Now
Can you imagine the outcries of national shame from liberal commentators if George W. Bush had accepted a peace prize by advocating for war and announcing his right to launch wars of aggression? What an embarrassment that would have been!
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 6, 2013 Remaking the World from Madison Wisconsin
I'm on my way to Madison, Wisconsin, and I hope you are too, and not just for the beer and (veggie) bratwursts. Here are seven other good reasons:
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 25, 2013 Occupy Everything. Did We Ever Give It Back?
I've just read Nathan Schneider's new book, Thank You, Anarchy: Notes From the Occupy Apocalypse, with a foreword by Rebecca Solnit. I consider this book one of the lasting benefits of Occupy.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 27, 2011 When the Public Rises, We'll Want an Ally in Congress
Yet a possibility is opening up of replacing Woolsey with someone who clearly has the potential to be even better than Kucinich has been thus far.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 11, 2016 Bush-Obama Powers Will Pass to Next President
Remember when coups and assassinations were secretive, when presidents were obliged to go to Congress and tell lies and ask permission for wars, when torture, spying, and lawless imprisonment were illicit, when re-writing laws with signing statements and shutting down legal cases by yelling "state secrets!" was abusive, and when the idea of a president going through a list of men, women, and children on Tuesdays ...
SHARE Sunday, February 26, 2023 What Did the Peace Movement Do During the Destruction of Iraq?
The educational results of the peace movement against the war on Iraq were extensive but largely temporary, I think. The understanding that wars are based on lies faded. The shame for individuals who'd backed the war in Congress faded. The demand to reduce the military funding that generates new wars, or to close the foreign bases that instigate conflict, shriveled.
SHARE Wednesday, February 8, 2006 Inequality and War
Ending the extreme inequality of wealth and well-being in the United States would end the war in Iraq. Ending the war in Iraq and others like it would go a long way toward reducing the inequality.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, September 7, 2009 I'm Finally Hopeful
I'm a progressive and you're a progressive, but I'm starting to find reason to hope as you're coming off a giant sugar high and plunging into the deep despair of one betrayed and scorned. What gives?
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 12, 2010 Yoo's Lies About Obama
Yoo stresses that he supports that "broad view." He's being modest. He INVENTED it.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 6, 2010 One Place to Cut Spending: Kidnapping and Torture
I know it seems like more of a noble sacrifice to cut spending on things people less fortunate than ourselves need, but can somebody explain to me why it wouldn't be at least that noble to eliminate the budget of the CIA, which serves no one?
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 1, 2015 Exporting Sherman's March
What intrigues me most is the possibility that the South today could come to oppose war by recognizing Sherman's victims in the victims of U.S. wars and occupations.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 8, 2020 Everything Will Fundamentally Change
In June 2019, Joe Biden promised wealthy so-called donors that nothing would fundamentally change. At this moment hundreds of millions of people from those shooting off fireworks to those ranting as though they will soon shoot up public places in their MAGA hats seem convinced that everything will fundamentally change. Biden was wrong. Everybody else is right. Either everything will change for the better or . . .
SHARE Tuesday, November 9, 2021 COPOUT 26 Left Out the Topics and People It Needed
I'm not sure what we should have expected from a 26th UN climate meeting after 25 previous meetings had generated the opposite of the purportedly intended result.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 22, 2009 Bricks in the Chamber Pot of Commerce
The US Chamber of Commerce blew a mere $39 million on lobbying in Washington in the past three months. Lobbying for the promotion of global warming, the denial of healthcare, the further deregulation (if possible) of the financial "industry", blockage of the right to unionize, the lowering and elimination of minimum wage laws, maintenance of tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, and protection of the "right" of corporations
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 3, 2010 How Kucinich Resolution Will Help End Afghan War
Tomorrow, Thursday, March 24, Congressman Dennis Kucinich plans to introduce a privileged resolution to end the Afghan War. The resolution requires that the House debate, within the next week, the continuing war in Afghanistan, now the second longest war in American history.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 7, 2013 War Is A Lie
In honor of the 10th Anniversary of Operation Iraqi Liberation, and in hopes of helping us keep in mind that every war is based on similar lies, even if sometimes the lies are told more competently, I'm making available here the introduction to my book War Is A Lie.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 8, 2007 You Can't Hurt a Troop by Defunding a War
When Senator Russ Feingold and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid propose cutting off the funding for the war, they are proposing the only thing that can possibly benefit U.S. troops. In fact, there is no way to make any sense of the idea that they could possibly be hurting U.S. troops. The funding is not for the troops.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, May 13, 2013 Why We Allow the Destruction of Our Planet
It's not enough to point out that our political system is completely corrupted by money, including money from coal and oil and nukes and gas. Of course it is.
SHARE Wednesday, February 2, 2022 Why Ukraine Needs the Kellogg-Briand Pact
In 1929, Russia and China proposed to go to war. Governments around the world pointed out that they'd just signed and ratified the Kellogg-Briand Pact banning all war. Russia withdrew. Peace was made.
SHARE Sunday, February 3, 2008 Editorial Pages Report the News
Increasingly, all the news that's fit to print does not include the news that editorial writers deem significant. The New York Times and many other newspapers have developed the habit of writing lengthy editorials about news stories that never make it into the news section. One example of this trend is the story of last Monday's presidential signing statement. If you don't know what a signing statement is, you should consider
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, March 21, 2014 The War Activists
War activists, like peace activists, push for an agenda. We don't think of them as activists because they rotate in and out of government positions, receive huge amounts of funding, have access to big media, and get meetings with top officials just by asking -- without having to generate a protest first.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 4, 2014 In Search of a Good War
The U.S. public is not longing for a U.S. war in Ukraine.
SHARE Thursday, May 8, 2014 Possibly the Biggest Unknown Known Risks Exposure
This story, among other stunning features, I think, threatens to expose an unknown known of the highest magnitude -- by which I mean, not something lying outside Donald Rumsfeld's imagination, but something that everyone paying attention has known all about for years but which would explode the brains of most consumers of corporate media if they ever heard about it.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 24, 2019 Savagery and Its Promoters and Profiteers
Max Blumenthal's new book, "The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump," is over 300 pages and wastes not a word. It also does far more than it claims.
SHARE Wednesday, January 26, 2022 The War Is Good For You Books Are Getting Weirder
Christopher Coker's Why War fits into a genre with Margaret MacMillan's War: How Conflict Shaped Us, Ian Morris's War: What Is It Good For?, and Neil deGrasse Tyson's Accessory to War.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 12, 2008 Xmas Letter to Obama: How You Could Have Won
I'm sending this early, Senator, because of my confidence that you won't open it until Christmas and my concern that when you do you'll say I should have spoken up sooner.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, February 5, 2010 12 Leaders Cosponsor Amendment to Block Corporate Election Buying
Congresswoman Donna Edwards' bill proposing a Constitutional Amendment to deny corporations the free speech rights of persons in the form of unlimited election bribery spending has now been cosponsored by: John Conyers, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Jim McGovern, Keith Ellison, Chellie Pingree, Barbara Lee, Andre Carson, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Betty Sutton, Raul Grijalva and Ed Markey.
SHARE Saturday, January 19, 2013 The African-American Army
Before he integrated baseball, Jackie Robinson refused to move to the back of a bus on Fort Hood.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 1, 2008 Omaha: Root of All Evil?
What if a single nation on this planet were to pour more resources into its military than the rest of the nations combined, set up military bases in 80 percent of the other nations, stockpile more nuclear weapons than all other nations combined, develop new nuclear weapons intended for aggressive first-strike use, completely dominate the militarization of space, erase any policy lines between space and ground warfare and
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, August 27, 2021 No More Attacks on Afghanistan
By Kathy Kelly, Nick Mottern, David Swanson, Brian Terrell, August 27, 2021
SHARE Wednesday, June 28, 2006 A Portrait of a Progressive Congressman
I sat down with Congressman McDermott on Monday to discuss the Iraq War and the possibilities for peace. He offered insights and lessons from history that we would all do well to bear in mind.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 10, 2009 Put Wars and Banksters on PAYGO
On Tuesday President Obama proposed that any increases in federal spending on anything useful, such as healthcare or retirement security, must be balanced by cuts and savings to something else useful, such as healthcare or retirement security.
SHARE Friday, June 8, 2012 The Spread of Sacrifice Zones
Chris Hedge's and Joe Sacco's new book, "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt," is a treasure.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 6, 2012 Pearl Harbor Day Is a Day to Cherish the $1.3 Trillion We Blow on War Preparation Every Year
It warms one's heart to recall in the depths of winter that over half the taxes we labor to submit to our government each year go into war preparations. Such bountiful spending is required, because one never knows when the Japs or the Serbians or the Iranians may attack.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 5, 2013 What Didn't Kill Mandela Made Him Stronger
Nelson Mandela's story, if told as a novel, would not be deemed possible in real life. Worse, we don't tell such stories in many of our novels.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, May 18, 2007 What Do These Crimes Have in Common?
There is a theme that may unite this particular crime with a significant subset of the crimes of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
SHARE Wednesday, October 3, 2007 Is Marie Cocco Coocoo?
Liberal columnist Marie Cocco maintains her progressive positions right up to the point where she might diverge in the slightest from the Democratic leadership in Congress. Last spring she wasn't so noticeable. Most progressive pundits back in March and May were playing right along with the pretense that the Democrats in Congress didn't have the power to end the occupation of Iraq. This was and is simply not true.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 15, 2014 The Climate Is Invading the Earth!
If an alien invader with a face were attacking the earth, the difficulties that governments have getting populations to support wars on other humans would be multiplied a thousand fold.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 14, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Ellen Schrecker on McCarthyism Then and Now
Ellen Schrecker is a retired professor of American history at Yeshiva University and a leading authority on McCarthyism. Her books include Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America and No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism in the Universities. We discuss the history of McCarthyism and its current manifestations.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 25, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Deirdre Enright on Freeing Innocent People from Prison
Deirdre Enright is director of investigation for the University of Virginia Law School's Innocence Project Clinic. Enright previously worked at the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, where she represented clients and consulted on cases in all stages of capital litigation, with primary focus on federal and state post-conviction proceedings and Supreme Court certiorari review. After graduating from the University o
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 12, 2019 How Not to Go to War
If you saw a book in Barnes and Noble called "How Not to Go to War," wouldn't you assume it was a guide to the proper equipment every good warrior should have when they head off to do a little killing, or perhaps something like this U.S. news article on "How Not to Go to War Against ISIS" which is all about what law you should pretend authorizes a violation of the UN Charter and the Kellogg-Briand Pact?
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, June 22, 2009 Rallies Around U.S. To Demand Accountability for Torture
Thursday, June 25, 2009, has been designated Torture Accountability Action Day by a large coalition of human rights groups planning rallies and marches in major U.S. cities, including a rally in Washington, D.C.'s John Marshall Park at 11 a.m. followed by a noon march to the Justice Department where some participants will risk arrest in nonviolent protest if a special prosecutor for torture is not appointed.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, December 14, 2012 A Way to Stop the Violence
The troubled souls (generally known in the media as "monsters" and "lunatics") who keep shooting up schools and shopping centers, believe they are solving deeper problems.
SHARE Thursday, April 24, 2014 If War Was Funded Like College Tuition
Bills to those opting for war-making as their foreign policy choice this year came to $3,822 each -- not counting room, board, and books.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 7, 2014 Thoughts of a Beheaded Head
Dostoievski once had a character imagine what a head would think if for some seconds it were aware of having been cut off by an executioner's guillotine, or if somehow it were aware for a full minute, or even for five minutes.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 23, 2020 There Are Anti-War Candidates
I don't have any use for PEP politicians (progressive except on the Pentagon), but there are going to be serious members of the U.S. Congress next year who aren't afraid of flags and war songs. There are going to be a lot more than (AOC+3) four of them.
SHARE Wednesday, January 5, 2022 Magistrate Takes U.S. Navy to Task for Its Jets, Lies, and Secrecy
World BEYOND War has long supported efforts to stop noisy, polluting Navy jet flights over state parks in Washington State.
Now a report by Chief United States Magistrate Justice J. Richard Creatura has got the Seattle Times editorial board proposing some sort of "compromise."
SHARE Wednesday, October 15, 2008 Nadir
Warm up for tonight's debate without watching the pundits.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, March 12, 2010 Why Hayden's Wrong, Why Pelosi's Lying
Tom Hayden wants peace, but he's sincerely mistaken about how to get it. -- Pelosi does not sincerely want anything substantive and tends to lie whenever her lips move.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 15, 2020 Where Did the War on Cancer Come From?
Did you ever wonder whether Western culture focuses on destroying rather than preventing cancer, and talks about it with all the language of a war against an enemy, just because that's how this culture does things, or whether the approach to cancer was actually created by people waging a real war?
SHARE Sunday, February 26, 2023 What to Replace the Monroe Doctrine With
A major step could be taken by the U.S. government through the simple abolition of one little rhetorical practice: hypocrisy. You want to be part of a "rules-based order"? Then join one! There is one out there waiting for you, and Latin America is leading it.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 3, 2016 The Trump Doctrine
Here's a condensed version of Donald Trump's recent speech that I'm considering offering on gold-ish plating for $19.98:
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 23, 2008 McCain and Hate Mongering DVDs in Virginia
The DVD seeks to teach people that an entire religion, Islam, is aimed at terrorizing and killing them. The distributors of the DVD have clearly determined by some respectable and scholarly method that this information is most edifying for residents of swing states.
SHARE Monday, April 30, 2012 Labor Not Loyalty on May 1
For that we need to be rid of Loyalty Day, and we need to replace it with what May 1st was always supposed to be: May Day.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 27, 2021 Why Samantha Power should not hold public office
It took a variety of approaches to market the 2003 war on Iraq. For some it was to be a defense against an imagined threat. For others it was false revenge. But for Samantha Power it was philanthropy. She said at the time, "An American intervention likely will improve the lives of the Iraqis. Their lives could not get worse, I think it's quite safe to say." Needless to say, it wasn't safe to say that.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, February 8, 2008 Impeach Dick Cheney, If You Will
A recent national poll on impeachment, conducted by the American Research Group last November, found that 52 percent of Americans believed Vice President Dick Cheney had committed impeachable offenses.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 13, 2008 Nation's Largest Anti-War Coalition Resolves to Work for Prosecution of War Criminals
United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the largest coalition of peace organizations (over 1,400 of them) in the United States, held a national assembly in Chicago December 12-14, and drafted documents establishing the movement's agenda for the coming year.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 1, 2014 Olympic Capitalism: Bread and Circuses Without the Bread
The author of Brazil's Dance With the Devil, Dave Zirin, must love sports, as I do, as billions of us do, or he wouldn't keep writing about where sports have gone wrong. But, wow, have they gone wrong!
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 4, 2016 CNN Lies That Primary Is Over
CNN's latest lie that Hillary Clinton has won a presidential primary reads like this:
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, April 17, 2006 Impeach John Casteen
Presidents and Prime Ministers who most deserve to be ridden out of office on a rail: George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and John Casteen.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 19, 2009 What Is a Populist Caucus?
Now along comes a new caucus of Democrats called the Populist Caucus, which has at least 23 members thus far, including my own Congress member, Tom Perriello.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 16, 2005 Cindy's Day in Court
Cindy Sheehan has a court date Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C., and faces up to 6 months in jail for the charge of demonstrating without a permit.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 5, 2013 Some Don't Pay Their War Taxes
Many of them have put the dollars they owe in taxes into one of a number of funds set up for this purpose. They can take their money back if they choose, but meanwhile the interest it earns goes to worthy causes of their choosing in the form of these grants announced in something more like a celebration than the usual tax-day lamentation that war opponents are all familiar with.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, June 10, 2013 Not Impeaching Bush Is Sure Paying Off!
Many loyal Republicans opposed impeaching George W. Bush. So did most liberal and progressive activist groups, labor unions, peace organizations, churches, media outlets, journalists, pundits, organizers, and bloggers, not to mention most Democratic members of Congress, most Democrats dreaming of someday being in Congress, and -- toward the end of the Bush presidency -- most supporters of candidate Obama or candidate Clinton.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 25, 2007 Cindy Sheehan, George Will, and Loving Your Enemies
Peace activist and gold star mother Cindy Sheehan and spokesman for a war-based oligarchy George Will both published columns this weekend arguing that non-Americans are human beings.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 30, 2016 A Pro- and Anti-War Dialogue
Anti-War Advocate: Is there a case that can be made for war?
Pro-War Advocate: Well, yes. In a word: Hitler!
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 9, 2007 Feith Based Intelligence
The presentation purports to show that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were working together and had been for years. Not only was this a presentation of intelligence at odds with what the legitimate intelligence community was saying, but the first slide in the presentation provides reasons why the intelligence community had it wrong. This hardly looks like the product of an office doing only policy work, rather than intelligence
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 16, 2012 How to Not Fix the Filibuster
Leaving the 41-senator filibuster in place but requiring that they run their mouths (and some of us have to listen) is not exactly the kind of Change most of us Hope for.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 5, 2015 Presidents Are Gods
A former Governor of Virginia is expected to be sentenced to a long stay in prison. The same fate has befallen governors in states across the United States, including in nearby Maryland, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
SHARE Monday, January 11, 2016 A Homeland Is a Country That Allows Domestic Use of Military
Have you seen Dahr Jamail's report on U.S. military plans for war games in Washington state? I'm sure some observers imagine that the military is simply looking for a place to engage in safe and responsible and needed practice in hand-to-hand combat against incoming North Korean nuclear missiles, or perhaps to rehearse a humanitarian invasion of Russia to uphold the international law against Vladimir Putin's existence.
SHARE Tuesday, March 29, 2016 Israeli War Lies Fall As Corporate Media Falls
A new film narrated by Roger Waters, The Occupation of the American Mind, traces the rise of Israeli war propaganda in the United States. This propaganda, which has skillfully swayed U.S. public opinion in support of Israeli wars and occupations, has in fact been not so much a matter of skill as a matter of control.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 1, 2020 What Waging War Is Really Like
What do veterans think of war? Nancy Hill asked dozens of them and has published their answers and photographs of them.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 22, 2007 Impeach07 Campaign LaunchedThe impeachment movement is uniting and expanding. We're joining with many other organizations to launch Impeach07, a coordinated series of actions aimed at impeaching Bush and Cheney through widespread public protest, creative dissent, media activism, education, and lobbying: http://www.impeach07.org
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 5, 2007 The Dumbest Thing the Washington Post Could Print
The Washington Post today published an article by Michael Tomasky called "The Dumbest Move the Dems Could Make." With a lot of publications, this article itself would have been the dumbest thing they'd ever printed. Of course, we're talking about the Washington Post...
SHARE Wednesday, November 2, 2016 Of Veterans and Black Mirror Roaches
If you're a fan of the Netflix show Black Mirror, go watch the episode called "Men Against Fire" before reading this. It's the one about war.
SHARE Wednesday, September 16, 2020 Peace Crimes
A new book by Kieran Finnane has the title "Peace Crimes." It refers to acts of civil disobedience against war, or civil resistance to war.
SHARE Tuesday, July 20, 2021 War Powers Reform Bill Far Better Than Feared
This bill looks to me to have much more good than bad in it. While it repeals the War Powers Resolution of 1973, it replaces it with a tweaked (not a decimated) version that is in some ways better than the original. It also repeals the AUMFs, including the 2001 AUMF that the busy AUMF repealers of recent months have avoided mentioning.
SHARE Sunday, April 30, 2006 Today Is Mission Accomplished Day
At 9:00 a.m. ET on Monday, May 1, "Mission Accomplished Day," in Room 235 of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., Ellen Tenney of Rockingham, Vermont, will present the Speaker of the House with petitions from three towns in Vermont calling for the impeachment of President Bush. The towns each passed resolutions to send the petitions.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 29, 2011 Memoirs of Torturers
Just as the torture techniques drifted down the chain of command from these dealers in death to the rank and file, so too the book contracts. The cogs in the machine are now documenting their bit parts in the past decade's torture epidemic with pride and publishing deals.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, January 9, 2015 Do Americans Hate Children?
Yes, I know you love your children, as I love mine. That's not in doubt. But do you love mine and I yours? Because collectively there seems to be a problem.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 16, 2016 Orlando Killer's Secret Shared by Other Terrorists
Did you know that every single foreign terrorist in the United States in recent decades, plus domestic terrorists claiming foreign motivations, plus numerous poor suckers set up and stung by the FBI, plus every foreign terrorist organization that has claimed or been blamed for attempted or successful anti-U.S. terrorism have all claimed the same motivation? I'm not aware of a single exception.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 4, 2009 March of the Dead to Greet Congress on Tuesday
A long column of figures dressed all in black with white death masks and bearing the names of those killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. The march will be followed by a dramatic nonviolent action intended to awaken Congress to the need to end the wars.
SHARE Wednesday, April 9, 2014 War For Dummies
16% of us can accurately identify Ukraine's location on a map.
SHARE Thursday, March 16, 2017 City to Vote on Resolution Opposing Trump's Budget
Charlottesville, Va., City Council has on its agenda for Monday, March 20th, a vote on a resolution opposing President Donald Trump's proposal to shift $54 billion from human and environmental needs to military spending. The resolution calls on Congress to shift funds in the opposite direction.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 18, 2007 US Will Tip Its Hand Before Attacking Iran
If Bush and Cheney attack Iran, we will almost certainly know it's coming. For months prior to the invasion of Iraq, even while the corporate media bombarded us with the pretense that Bush and Cheney had not yet decided on war, other stories further back in the pages of newspapers and on the internet informed us, or should have informed us, that an attack was coming.
SHARE Thursday, August 7, 2014 Back in Iraq, Jack!
President Obama may want us to sympathize with patriotic torturers, he may turn on whistleblowers like a flesh-eating zombie, he may have lost all ability to think an authentic thought, but I will say this for him: He knows how to mark the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin fraud like a champion.
SHARE Thursday, March 26, 2009 Townhall Talk and a New Way Forward
Obama's Thursday "town hall" featuring questions submitted online produced some interesting comments from our president.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 16, 2012 Dude, That Is So Killer
Are you aware, I asked a friend, that the guy you're registering new voters to vote for keeps a list of people he intends to kill? Oh well, he replied, you know.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 8, 2020 What Has Become of the Nobel Peace Prize
What real credibility does the award have?
Roundtable is a discussion program with an edge.
Watch this video.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 19, 2016 Guinness Book of Warmongering
My son left a 2015 Guinness Book of World Records lying around. It's largely a mix of athletic feats, extravagant spending, freakish body conditions and diseases, and people who do dumb stuff in order to get into the book. It also features two sections focused on mass-murder. One celebrates the technology used to kill people. In that section, the United States is featured almost exclusively. The other section ...
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 2, 2019 Exceptionally Innocent
Go right now and get yourself and the nearest house with a flag in front of it a copy of Roberto Sirvent's and Danny Haiphong's American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People's History of Fake News From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, January 31, 2022 Top 10 Reasons to March Against War in February 2003 But Not February 2022
In 2003 it was important to denounce the lying schemers pretending that Iraq had nukes. In 2022, U.S. officials stirring up war with Russia know that Russia has lots of nukes but don't even care and aren't even talking about it, so there's just not much for us to do or worry about. After all this snow, a nuclear winter doesn't sound so awful.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 9, 2016 "Flag Day Has Been Canceled!"
If that headline sounds a bit like "God Is Dead" to you, you just might be from the United States. Only what the people who live in this one country of the American hemisphere call "an American" carries that variety of flag passion. If, on the other hand, you find watching paint dry more engaging than the suspense of waiting for the next Flag Day, you just might be a candidate for citizen of the world.
SHARE Monday, December 17, 2018 Billboards to End War Going Up and Not Going Up
New billboards are going up around the United States and elsewhere opposing war. Some are not going up because the message is deemed unacceptable. Many more are being planned.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 9, 2008 Stuart Taylor Jr.'s Crusade for Torturers
The Pardon Scorecard is expanding rapidly, tracking punditry and advocacy against and in support of Bush pardoning crimes he authorized. Happily, the Against column is much longer than the Support column.
SHARE Wednesday, November 13, 2013 Let's Take Advantage of Suffering Filipinos!
The same week in which a Washington Post columnist claimed that interracial marriage makes people gag, a USA Today columnist has proposed using the U.S. military to aid those suffering in the Philippines -- as a backdoor means of getting the U.S. military back into a larger occupation of the Philippines.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 6, 2014 If a Genocide Falls in the Forest
There's a wide and mysterious chasm between the stated intentions of the Israeli government as depicted by the U.S. media and what the Israeli government has been doing in Gaza, even as recounted in the U.S. media.
SHARE Thursday, February 26, 2015 Did Berkeley Just Save Us From Drones or Target Us With Drones?
Robert L. Meola has been working for years now to get Berkeley to catch up with other localities and claim its usual spot at the forefront of movements to pass good resolutions on major issues. Now Berkeley has acted and Meola says "This is NOT what I/we asked for."
SHARE Thursday, August 20, 2015 Most Disgusting Game Ever
No, I'm not referring to the U.S. election. I'm referring to "Bycatch." The name refers not to fish accidentally caught and killed while trying to catch and kill other fish, but to humans murdered in a game in which the player hopes to murder certain other humans but knows that he or she stands a good chance of murdering some bycatch.
SHARE Thursday, May 17, 2018 War Is Love
On Monday I was arrested along with many other people in the street in front of the U.S. Capitol, participating in the new Poor People's Campaign, the first multi-issue coalition we've seen in years that properly takes on militarism rather than indulging the fantasy of a $1 trillion a year military coexisting with decent humanitarian and environmental policies.
SHARE Tuesday, November 8, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Sonia Kennebeck on the Drone as National Bird
Sonia Kennebeck is director and producwer of National Bird, an amazing new documentary about drones. Kennebeck is an independent documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist with more than 15 years of directing and producing experience.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 2, 2013 Wars That Aren't Meant to Be Won
Some wars are fought without a desire to win, others without winning being the top priority, either for the top war makers or for the ordinary soldiers.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 15, 2014 If Iraq Were in Central America
Most people in the United States don't realize how convenient it has been to have millions of Iraqis made homeless so far away from the United States, fleeing to places like Syria, and then fleeing Syria when it's Syria's turn to be destroyed.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 24, 2014 War in the Hundred Acre Woods
Imagine if children, when they'd just gotten a bit too old for Winnie the Pooh and we're becoming old enough to read serious arguments, were told that A.A. Milne also wrote a book in 1933-1934 called Peace With Honour.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 20, 2009 Tom Donohue and the Chamber of Open Secrets
Pulling pranks on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is just too easy. The Yes Men held a press conference this week pretending to speak for the chamber and fooled the journalists in the room, because "We are no longer going to promote the destruction of the earth's climate" is such a compelling position that it's very tempting to imagine that any human being could adopt it.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 16, 2014 Laughing Our Way to Destruction
If members of the U.S. public were ever to wonder what the other 95% of humanity thinks about them, would it be better to break that harsh truth to them gently or just to blurt it out?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 17, 2014 If ISIS Were Really a Movie
ISIS has created a movie preview for the coming war, a war it eagerly wants Washington to take part in. The White House and Congress would like to oblige, as long as the movie can be a short one, on the model of Libya. Here's the plot: Evil force arises out of nowhere; United States destroys it; credits roll.
SHARE Thursday, November 19, 2020 Guide to Why You Should Not Sell Weapons to UAE for Dummies
The UAE is run by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces (MbZ).
SHARE Thursday, November 13, 2014 How Is a Prison Like a War?
The similarities between mass incarceration and mass murder have been haunting me for a while, and I now find myself inspired by Maya Schenwar's excellent new book Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better.
SHARE Wednesday, August 11, 2021 Might Congress Actually Do Something Right?
To take recent news reports seriously, it seems just possible that sometime this year the U.S. Congress might pass a pair of pieces of legislation that combine to do more good than harm.
SHARE Wednesday, December 1, 2021 Youth from Around the World Contribute to a Book on Peace
This is a critical point that young people keep telling us. Part of ending war has to be ceasing to indoctrinate young people with acceptance of war. Part of working for peace has to include inspiring young people to do likewise - and being inspired by young people who are doing it.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 4, 2006 Ed Asner on Illegal War and Impeachment
"Well, you know, most of the time when I encounter Rumsfeld on the news, etc, it's like talking to the white rabbit . . . . We are an unmotivated, cowering people. We will say, 'Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you,' but teachers are dying in the streets in Mexico from the federales. Do you think teachers would be dying in the streets in Peoria?"
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, November 2, 2015 Armistice Day 97 Years On
Ninety-seven years ago, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, fighting ceased in the "war to end all wars." People went on killing and dying right up until the pre-designated moment, impacting nothing other than our understanding of the stupidity of war.
SHARE Sunday, November 8, 2015 The TPP: You, Me, Everyone Else, Against the Media
The proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a test of whether the people of the United States can communicate something critically important to each other that the major media corporations do not want communicated.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 9, 2015 Trump Didn't Vote to Kill 1 Million Muslims in Iraq, Hillary Did
Thanks to Glenn Greenwald for pointing out that the U.S. media is acting as though Donald Trump just invented bigotry this week (one of those ugly details I'm happy to miss by never watching television). But not only is explicit bigotry toward Muslims not new, implicit bigotry toward Muslims has been the foundation of the largest public project in the United States for the past quarter century.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 11, 2010 Tall Tillman Tales
Pat Tillman was so good, so decent, so brave, and of such misguided integrity that what happened to him is excruciatingly painful to watch.
SHARE Wednesday, December 28, 2011 My New Year's Resolutions
Work with not just this year but many future years and generations and centuries in mind.
SHARE Wednesday, October 3, 2018 Pasting Over Vacuity With Identity in U.S. Politics
By all means, celebrate any blow to bigotry. But tell elected officials that you only care about their demographic characteristics at your peril.
SHARE Friday, April 29, 2011 Why a Dog Is More Qualified for Congress Than Robert Hurt
Hurt told the paper that he wants to cut spending, but not in the military: "I think everybody would agree that national defense is a top priority for our government and really for any government." Does Hurt really think that? Because this is where a dog being better qualified for Congress than Hurt comes in.
SHARE Tuesday, February 3, 2015 It's the Blind Partisanship
Why did the peace movement grow large around 2003-2006 and shrink around 2008-2010? Military spending, troop levels abroad, and number of wars engaged in can explain the growth but not the shrinkage. Those factors hardly changed between the high point and the low point of peace activism.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 4, 2015 Addiction Is Not Addictive
Whether someone becomes addicted to drugs has much more to do with their childhood and their quality of life than with the drug they use or with anything in their genes.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 25, 2019 The Resistance Takes a Stand for Keeping Trump in Office
I'm old enough to remember when Nancy Pelosi was telling us that Trump would impeach himself.
Now, Trump's "not worth it," as if impeachment is a favor you bestow on those most worthy.
Jerrold Nadler is proposing to fine Trump for refusing to comply with subpoenas.
Do you grasp the full meaning of that last one?
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 27, 2007 Depleted Uranium and Depleted Democracy
Remarks at October 27, 2007, rally in Jonesborough, Tenn., preceding march to Aerojet Ordnance, manufacturers of Depleted Uranium weapons.
SHARE Wednesday, December 30, 2020 Top 10 Questions for Avril Haines
Before Avril Haines can become Director of National Intelligence, Senators must approve. And before that, they must ask questions. Here are some suggestions for what they should ask.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 28, 2012 Is Our Deepest Desire to Die?
These nuclear-armed missiles could be sent by a U.S. president in 13 minutes or less.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, October 26, 2007 What Is Rahm Emanuel Talking About?
Congressman Rahm Emanuel is chairman of the Democratic Caucus. Congressman, people out there are wondering why did they elect the Democrats to end the war in if the war is still going?
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, October 20, 2008 Sweeping Astroturf
Imagine for a second that it's November 5th, and the Democrats are set to control both houses of Congress and the White House. Perhaps they even control 60 Senate seats, making Republican filibusters impossible. Now what?
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 21, 2009 Does Cheney Make Obama Look Good Enough?
Dick Cheney could make anyone look decent, honorable, and law-abiding by comparison. But is the existence of someone worse, no matter how many hours our media monopoly gives him, enough to make Obama's decisions acceptable? Let's look at their pair of speeches given on Thursday in Washington, D.C., and depicted as a debate by the media.
SHARE Wednesday, August 1, 2012 Veterans For Peace National Convention in Miami to Feature Alice Walker, Phil Donahue
Veterans For Peace will hold its 2012 National Convention in Miami, Fla., August 8-11. The event, which includes speeches, films, workshops, and musical entertainment, is open to the public and will feature prize-winning novelist Alice Walker, film producer Phil Donahue, activist Roy Bourgeois, and many other speakers.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, August 16, 2013 Spy on Me, I'm Innocent!
You've heard people say they want to be spied on, as long as it means that other people will be spied on too. I know you've heard people say this, and which people it was, and how your face looked when you heard it, and what your next telephone call was.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, December 8, 2014 Rand Paul Declares a Non-War War
Paul's war declaration doesn't just declare a war that is already underway. It declares a war limited to this action exclusively:
SHARE Thursday, November 6, 2008 Recount Fictions in Virginia's Fifth
As of about 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, 316,476 votes had been counted in Virginia's Fifth District congressional race between incumbent bigotted xenophobe Virgil Goode and challenger Tom Perriello, with 158,562 going to Perriello and 157,914 to Goode, for a difference of 648 votes or 0.2 percent of the total.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 3, 2009 Guess Who Wants a Special Prosecutor
142 Organizations Agree With Leading Senators and Congress Members: The Crimes of Bush, Cheney, and Other Top Officials Must Be Prosecuted
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 4, 2009 Declaration of Indictment
It is the Right of the People to demand the prosecution of the criminals and to refuse subservience to that Government until this Demand is met, and thereby to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Look Who Just Funded the Escalation
The U.S. House of Representatives approved on Wednesday another $130 billion for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and (it goes without saying) Pakistan, money that will be used to continue the wars and to escalate the war in Afghanistan.
SHARE Thursday, May 21, 2015 Being Pro-Voice
The abortion debates is the last place I would have looked for inspiration in methods of handling the major political and social problems of the world. Politically I've always thought of abortion -- the topic of abortion, that is -- as part of a fraud.
SHARE Friday, March 5, 2021 John Mueller's Strange Take on "The Stupidity of War"
How can you not love a book called The Stupidity of War? I'm tempted to count the ways. John Mueller's new book is an odd one, for which I hope there is a perfect audience out there though I'm not sure who it is.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, August 6, 2012 Slow Democracy
Susan Clark and Woden Teachout's new book, "Slow Democracy," offers the civil equivalent to slow food. The goal of both is not slowness for its own sake, but quality, health, sustainability, and the pursuit of happiness.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 17, 2016 What's the Truth Hidden by the "Super Predators" Lie?
The desire to punish for the joy of punishing, for revenge, or for racist or sadistic domination has always had certain difficulties hiding behind the pretense of punishing for protection from danger.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Nonviolence Now
Change is in the air. How about a change away from violence?
SHARE Thursday, August 9, 2012 Soldiers Who Refuse to Kill
One of the most inspiring events thus far at the Veterans For Peace National Convention underway in Miami was a presentation on Thursday by several veterans who have refused to participate in war.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 29, 2014 57 Candidates and Nothing On
I was lucky to attend a debate among the candidates for Congress from Virginia's Fifth District just before game 7 of the world series. This was the kind of event you can write about while drinking beer and yelling at a television with your family. In fact, I'm not sure there's any other way you could write about it.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, March 13, 2017 War Abolition 101: How We Create a Peaceful World
How can we make the best argument for shifting from war to peace? How can we become more effective advocates and activists for ending particular wars, ending all wars, pursuing disarmament, and creating systems that maintain peace? Here's a chance to learn from World Beyond War experts as part of a study group and to do so at your own schedule.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 2, 2013 Resisting Racism and Militarism in 2013
January 21st will be an odd day in the United States. We'll honor Martin Luther King Jr. and bestow another 4-year regime on the man who, in his Nobel peace prize acceptance speech said that Martin Luther King Jr. had been wrong -- that those who follow his example "stand idle in the face of threats."
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 26, 2008 Under Penalty of Punishment
That's a translation of subpoena: Sub Poena: Under Punishment. And if you or I refused to obey a subpoena we would certainly be under punishment.
SHARE Saturday, May 26, 2007 Is Our Peace Activists Learning?
Over the past two months of repeated Congressional votes to fund the occupation of Iraq, culminating in President Bush's signing the bill on Friday, what – if anything – have we learned? Have we learned anything about individuals or political parties or activist organizations to trust or despise, or have we learned better what to demand of them regardless of such emotions? Have we learned anything about policies to support...
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 1, 2009 Power Shift in the Air
This weekend in Washington, D.C., there was a lot of preparation for Monday's massive civil disobedience for clean energy at the Capitol power plant. Nonviolence trainings, sign creation, conferences. On Sunday night, just before it began snowing hard, I attended a gathering of authors, poets, singers, and the lead organizers of the action in a large university auditorium, and blogged as follows:
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 14, 2010 The End of War
Chappell is developing his thought on the critical question of what motivates war and what could overcome it.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 21, 2012 Robots Kill, But the Blood Is on Our Hands
In her spare time, between nonstop peace activism and leading international exchanges, Medea Benjamin has somehow managed to write the best book yet on the most inhuman form of war yet. The book is called "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control."
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 31, 2013 Finally a Drone Report Done Right
While Human Rights Watch looked at six drone murders in Yemen and found two of them illegal and four of them indeterminate, Alkarama looked in more detail and with better context at the whole campaign of drone war on Yemen, detailing 10 cases.
SHARE Monday, September 14, 2020 Unvanquishable Number
On September 21, the International Day of Peace, you will be able to watch online the new film "We Are Many," and you darn well should. The topic is the single biggest day of activism on earth: February 15, 2003 an unprecedented statement against war, too often forgotten, and far too often misunderstood.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 4, 2021 U.S. Should Pay Iran Reparations
Why would I say such an outrageous, treasonous, delusional, OBVIOUSLY-funded-by-Putin thing? Am I hoping to enrage war-crazed sadists who've seen too much television "news"?
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 10, 2007 Only One Congress Member Gets It
On Wednesday, I spoke with Congresswomen Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey about getting out of Iraq. They are moving in the right direction, but are not yet serious about ending the occupation this year. They are resigned to putting up an effort in a misguided approach, and then hoping to actually end it in 2009. It has not yet penetrated anyone's understanding that the best chance we have to end the occupation of Iraq between...
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 18, 2014 Who Says Ferguson Can't End Well
Just as a police officer in a heightened state of panic surrounded by the comfort of impunity will shoot an innocent person, the Governor of Missouri has declared a state of emergency preemptively, thus justifying violence in response to something that hasn't happened. Bombing Iraq in response to nonexistent weapons and Libya in response to nonexistent threats worked out so well, we may as well try it domestically.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, May 25, 2012 The Special Loophole in Hell for War Lawyers
There is an enormous chasm between honest attempts to approach the ideal of compliance with written law, and open disregard for it.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 24, 2008 Is Slavery In Our Future?
John Bowe's terrific new book called "Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy" takes the reader on a journey ending in the question I've placed above this essay.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 5, 2008 Blue Virginia
Virginia and the rest of the old South always voted for Democrats for president when the Democratic party stood for racism, and for Republicans when the Republican party stood for racism, until tonight.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, December 17, 2012 How to Criticize the Israeli Government
The other day I tweeted an article that reported on a rather horrible story. It seems that the Israeli government gives African women drugs that keep them from reproducing.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 7, 2014 Thou Shalt Not Make Fun of World War I
The Secretary of Education of the United Kingdom (The United Kingdom has education?!) is royally upset that anyone would make fun of World War I as that great and glorious event hits the 100-year mark.
SHARE Tuesday, July 14, 2015 ISIS Crisis Exegesis
Talking with Iran has made the war profiteers and their servants sad and the rest of the world happy. Perhaps the novel idea of negotiating rather than killing will be carried over to several other parts of the world. Mainstream corporate voices are even raising the idea of talking with ISIS, or at least talking with the nations of the region ISIS is in about ISIS.
SHARE Friday, November 6, 2015 UVA is 19th Most Militarized University in the U.S.
According to a new analysis by Vice News, the University of Virginia is the 19th most militarized university in the United States. Vice News lists the top 100 in order, based on "the greatest number of students who are employed by the Intelligence Community (IC), have the closest relationships with the national security state, and profit the most from American war-waging."
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, January 25, 2008 ROMNEY WHISPER: MSNBC Claims It Was the Audience, I'm Not Kidding
Having ruled out the possibility that one of the other candidates was whispering to himself, MSNBC has added an update to its blog post concluding that someone in the audience must have been whispering near an "open mic."
SHARE Tuesday, December 1, 2015 Do War Makers Believe Their Own Propaganda?
Pick up Rubenstein's book if you want to read his elaboration on this list of reasons why people are brought around to supporting wars: 1. It's self-defense; 2. The enemy is evil; 3. Not fighting will make us weak, humiliated, dishonored; 4. Patriotism; 5. Humanitarian duty; 6. Exceptionalism; 7. It's a last resort.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 7, 2020 Unique New U.S. Genre Emerges: The War-Is-Good-for-You Book
The New York Times loves the latest war-is-good-for-you book, War: How Conflict Shaped Us by Margaret MacMillan. The book fits into the growing and exclusively U.S. genre that includes Ian Morris's War: What Is It Good For? Conflict and Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots (Morris came to the U.S. from the U.K. decades ago) and Neil deGrasse Tyson's Accessory to War.
SHARE Saturday, February 5, 2022 The Warmongers Miscalculated
The people inside the White House sometimes believe they can sell us what we don't want to buy.
(19 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 28, 2006 Be All That You Can Be: Leave the Army
Approximately 6,000 Americans have refused to report for duty or deserted in order to avoid taking part in this war, or to avoid taking further part in it.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 20, 2013 Lawrence Wilkerson and David Swanson Debate Colin Powell's Lies at the United Nations
When I wrote about MSNBC's documentary on Iraq war lies this week, I linked to an earlier blog post of mine that drew heavily on a House Judiciary Committee report on the same topic, as well as to Lawrence Wilkerson's recent debate with Norman Solomon on Democracy Now!
When Brad Friedman reposted my Hubris review, he suggested I ask Wilkerson for a response. I did and here it is:
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 3, 2013 Who the Missiles Will Hurt
Believe it or not -- after John McCain played video games on his phone during a hearing on bombing Syria, and Eleanor Holmes Norton said she'd only vote to bomb Syria out of loyalty to Obama -- there are decent people in the United States government who mean well and take their responsibilities seriously. One of them, who works on actual humanitarian aid (as opposed to humanitarian bombs) spoke to me.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 5, 2019 Has NATO Met Its Match?
Despite claims by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to have defeated its own troops using Facebook (and, really, what plot to take over a high school hasn't done that?), the biggest challenge NATO will face this year will probably not be nefarious Russian social media posts.
SHARE Sunday, November 26, 2023 Why Not Knowing How Israel Was Created Matters
It goes on mattering, decade after decade, that most U.S. students never encounter the word Nakba. It matters that Israel was created in 1948 through war/terrorism, through massacring families, driving some 750,000 people out of their homes, demolishing over 400 villages. It's not difficult to know. Many books even comic books have been published, films have been made, apps for your phone can locate vanished villages, etc.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 26, 2007 The GE Presidential Debate
MSNBC, owned by weapons-maker General Electric, opened Thursday night's debate with the unavoidable topic of Iraq, and unavoidably allowed each of the eight candidates on the stage to address it. Two of them, Congressman Dennis Kucinich and former Senator Mike Gravel, spoke in favor of ending the war.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 17, 2009 They Should Get a Union
"If a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union. It's that simple. We need to stand up to the business lobby and pass the Employee Free Choice Act. That's why I've been fighting for it in the Senate and that's why I'll make it the law of the land when I'm president of the United States." --Barack Obama
SHARE Monday, June 6, 2011 Our Tahrir Square: DC's Freedom Plaza on October 6th
On October 6th, a Thursday, the Afghanistan War will complete its first decade as the United States goes into its 2012 austerity budget. Tahrir Square in Cairo Egypt translates as Liberation Square. We have in Washington, D.C., a square with the similar name: Freedom Plaza.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, February 4, 2013 First City in U.S. Passes Resolution Against Drones
Shortly after 11 p.m. on Monday, February 4th, the City Council of Charlottesville, Va., passed what is believed to be the first anti-drone resolution in the country.
SHARE Tuesday, November 6, 2012 Who's Been Right and Who's Been Wrong
From 1856 to 1860 Elihu Burritt promoted a plan to prevent civil war through compensated emancipation, or the purchase and liberation of slaves by the government, an example that the English had set in the West Indies.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 12, 2006 Republican Congressman Says Bush Should Be Removed from Office
How does Congressman Paul think history will look on one of the 435 people in a position to act who declared action needed and then sat down and did nothing, who actually summoned the courage to admit publicly that he recognized the slide to fascism, but stood aside and wished the country well as it slid down the slope?
SHARE Wednesday, March 25, 2009 Congress: Tell Them in Person April 4 - 19
It's just spring, when the world is puddle-wonderful, and your representative and your two senators pack up their lingerie and come dancing from hop-scotch and toy soldiers to make the trek outside the Beltway for a well-earned vacation.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 21, 2010 Rep. Sestak, Want to Win?
Congressman Sestak, we ask you to vote No on the $33 billion escalation. But we would like you to do something much more serious: Commit now, ahead of time, to voting No and urge your colleagues to do the same.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 30, 2007 Rep. John Conyers Backs Impeachment
Advocates for impeachment can take some measure of encouragement not just from the 85 cities and towns and 14 state Democratic parties that have passed impeachment resolutions, or the 11 state legislatures that have introduced them (Maine was #11 on Tuesday), but also from comments made Tuesday evening in Detroit by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers.
SHARE Sunday, December 2, 2007 The Two Biggest Public Secrets, and How Bush Just Signing Statemented Iraq
As noted by the uniquely vigilant Charlie Savage in the Boston Globe, President Bush in November issued a signing statement unconstitutionally overturning 10 sections of H.R. 3222, the "Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2008." Among the little technical details Bush just erased was the requirement that he not take funds appropriated to the Pentagon for one thing and use them for something else.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 4, 2008 The Filibuster Excuse Lives
For the past two years, Congress has pretended that ending a war requires passing a bill and blamed its failure to pass a bill on Republican filibusters and presidential vetoes. The veto excuse is gone. But the pretense that a bill is needed is firmly entrenched, and the filibuster excuse lives.
SHARE Thursday, February 12, 2015 Cuba Through the Looking Glass
In other unusual Cuban phenomena, the U.S. government is allowing tourists to bring home $100 worth of rum and cigars. And the U.S. State Department is working on a forthcoming list of products that Cubans can export to the United States. The list will not include numerous life-saving medicines currently unavailable in the United States.
SHARE Tuesday, November 1, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: James Marc Leas on Canceling the F-35
James Marc Leas is a founding member of the Stop the F-35 Coalition in Burlington Vermont. He has published some two dozen articles on the F-35 and F-35 basing. To highlight the F-35 issue statewide, he ran for the office of Vermont Adjutant General, the leader of the Vermont National Guard, in 2013, which is elected by the legislature.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 21, 2007 Telling the Truth
Sam Provance exposed the torture in Abu Ghraib and as thanks had his career ruined, was threatened with prison, has had his wife leave him, and is now barely scraping by. He said Thursday evening that on a personal level his choice to speak out was not worth it. "But," he said, "this is not about me."
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 20, 2024 Only The Good Die in Silence
The father of modern warmaking Henry Kissinger died, and every major media outlet made a lot of noise -- millions of articles on the internet. Fair enough. What would contemporary coup-making or genocide be without his seminal work? But when the father of peace studies Johan Galtung died, not a single corporate media outlet said a single word. Not even an obituary. Not even a paragraph.
SHARE Wednesday, May 9, 2007 Rep. Maxine Waters Speaks Out for Impeachment
Congresswoman and House Judiciary Committee Member Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) has spoken up in support of impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Waters said she advocates impeaching Cheney first, which is the same approach taken by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) in his bill, H. Res. 333. Waters has not yet cosponsored that bill.
SHARE Thursday, November 6, 2008 Tom Perriello Up By 814
Good bye Virgil Goode. We'll try to recover from your damage, you do the same.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 20, 2012 You Mean Muslims Make Art?
When Jesus used a good Samaritan to explain the need to appreciate foreigners, he can be forgiven for not having known that so many Samaritans would later convert to Islam.
SHARE Tuesday, October 25, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Timeka Drew on Protecting Voter Rights
Timeka Drew is National Director of the Liberty Tree Foundation, a position she has served in since February of 2016. Previously she served as Liberty Tree's Communications Director and worked as lead organizer of the Global Climate Convergence. Timeka came to the Liberty Tree community via her work with the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) and local democracy, food sovereignty, and anti-racist organizing.
SHARE Tuesday, January 24, 2017 Talk Nation Radio: Sarah Van Gelder on The Revolution Where You Live
As co-founder of Yes! Magazine, Sarah van Gelder leads the framing and development of each issue of Yes! and writes a column introducing each issue. Sarah blogs at Yes! and Huffington Post, writes articles and does interviews for Yes! Magazine, and speaks on leading-edge innovations that show that another world is not only possible, it is being created. Her new book is called The Revolution Where You Live.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 12, 2022 Read Glen Ford
Someone asked me the other day for advice on collecting the best essays of the past 20 years. I recommended the new collection of Glen Ford's called The Black Agenda. I recommend it to everyone including people who are not black. I'm not black.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 4, 2007 Worlds Apart
The other day I wrote a column that no corporate newspaper would ever dream of printing, but submitted it to all of them anyway in hopes it might jar something loose. The Editorial Page Editor of Barron's Weekly wrote me back to disagree with my column, and I wrote him back, and he wrote me back, and so forth. The exchange, reproduced below, suggests that two people can read about the same events for several years and yet...
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 9, 2007 How to Vote in Primaries and Not Be an Idiot
Virtually nobody votes in primaries (or caucuses) compared to general elections. Therefore, each individual primary vote is worth many times what it is in the general election. And, it's more likely to be counted, since there's typically less fraud and abuse of the system in primaries. So, if you vote in general elections, you pretty much have to vote in primaries in order to not be an idiot.
SHARE Thursday, June 16, 2011 UVA/Reagan War Hawk Defends Obama's War
When a national television program this week needed to find a spokesperson for the right of presidents to launch wars without congressional authorization, it turned -- to the great shame of us University of Virginia alumni -- to Robert Turner.
SHARE Tuesday, March 27, 2007 How's the Progressive Caucus Progressing?
Seventy-one members of Congress, all Democrats, most House Members, two Senators, belong to the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
SHARE Wednesday, November 3, 2010 A Job Party
Getting the story and the next steps right.
SHARE Friday, October 23, 2015 When the War Machine Was Young
If you're into quaint, you can visit a historic village, restore some antique furniture, or for far less trouble pick up a mainstream analysis of the U.S. military from 40 years ago or so.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 12, 2020 Re-Learning to Reject War
Chris Lombardi's fantastic new book is called I Ain't Marching Anymore: Dissenters, Deserters, and Objectors to America's Wars. It's a wonderful history of U.S. wars, and both support for and opposition to them, with a major focus on troops and veterans, from 1754 to the present.
SHARE Wednesday, February 2, 2022 VIDEO: Ukraine Crisis Webinar: Peace Activists and Experts Gather
Speakers include:
Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director of The Nation magazine, columnist for the Washington Post.
Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army colonel, retired diplomat, author, activist.
Vladimir Kozin, member of Russian Academy of Military Sciences, speaking from Moscow.
Norman Solomon, co-founder and national director of RootsAction.org, author, activist.
Moderator: David Swanson
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 15, 2013 A New Jefferson Bible
Thomas Jefferson created his own Bible, and the Humanist Press has just republished it together with selections from what Jefferson left out, and selections labeled the best and worst from the Old Testament, the Koran, the Bhagavadgita, the Buddhist Sutras, and the Book of Mormon.
SHARE Wednesday, December 30, 2020 Top 10 Questions for Neera Tanden
Before Neera Tanden can become Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Senators must approve. And before that, they must ask questions. Here are some suggestions for what they should ask.
SHARE Thursday, February 11, 2021 10 Key Points on Ending Wars
On a webinar earlier today, Congressman Ro Khanna said that he believed the announcement of an end to offensive war meant that the U.S. military could not participate in bombing or sending missiles into Yemen at all, but only in protecting civilians within Saudi Arabia.
SHARE Monday, May 23, 2022 A Future-Crime Memorial Day
This Memorial Day, we have a solemn responsibility to glorify participants in wars that will leave no survivors.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 9, 2010 To Armistice Days, Past and Future
At 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month, make a toast to Armistice Day, the official end of World War I, a war the United States fought in for less time than President Obama and the 111th Congress have kept the fighting going in Afghanistan and Iraq.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, August 19, 2013 Apology to Canada From Your Southern Neighbor
As a Virginian, let me begin by apologizing for the fact that, six-years after the British landing at Jamestown, with the settlers struggling to survive and hardly managing to get their own local genocide underway, these new Virginians hired mercenaries to attack Acadia and drive the French out of what they considered their continent (even if they failed).
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 3, 2014 A 15-Year Murder Spree
Fifteen years ago, NATO was bombing Yugoslavia. This may be difficult for people to grasp who believe the Noah movie is historical fiction, but: What your government told you about the bombing of Kosovo was false. And it matters.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 23, 2015 Resistance in Honduras Alive and Jumping
June 28 will mark 6 years since the U.S.-backed military coup in Honduras took the people's government away from them. Thousands of people are still in the streets every week demanding that the wrongful president step down.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 31, 2016 What Does a Progressive Budget Look Like?
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has requested budget proposals from organizations and members of the public. Here is a friendly suggestion from World Beyond War.
SHARE Friday, April 10, 2009 Perfect Politicians: Grading Congress on a Curve
Raise your hand if you recall the 110th Congress (2007 - 2008) as having spent two years funding a war in Iraq that it had been elected to end, increasing the military's bloated budget, and adamantly refusing to hold war criminals accountable?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 22, 2010 Replace Rangel With Tasini Right Now
Well this is helpful. The best candidate for Congress I know of, Jonathan Tasini, is now running against an incumbent, Charlie Rangel, who is going to be put on trial in Congress for all sorts of alleged corruption.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 10, 2012 Armistice Day in the M.I.C.
Remarks at the Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center on November 10, 2012.
SHARE Friday, November 15, 2013 Germany Says No to Weaponized Drones
Germany had planned to buy a fleet of "Euro Hawk" killer drones -- perhaps in an effort to bring the European Union up to speed with certain other Nobel Peace laureates.
SHARE Wednesday, May 18, 2022 War Abolition Has a Rich History
For her part, Eleanor Roosevelt, in this book, makes a case that war should be ended as belief in witches and in the use of dueling had been ended. Can you just imagine the messy and immediate divorce that would follow the partner of any U.S. politician making such a statement today? Ultimately, this is the first reason to read writings from a different era: to learn what it was shockingly permissible to say.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 29, 2015 Three Cheers for Gridlock
That little smoke-filled room where our despair and paranoia incline us to imagine a small number of evil people run the world clearly forgot to keep an eye on the Republican Party.
SHARE Friday, February 12, 2016 Is This An Uprising?
The new book This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century by Mark Engler and Paul Engler is a terrific survey of direct action strategies, bringing out many of the strengths and weaknesses of activist efforts to effect major change in the United States and around the world since well before the twenty-first century. It should be taught in every level of our schools.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 2, 2008 Dear Iowa, Vote for Dennis But Don't Listen to Him
I love Dennis Kucinich and think he is far and away the best candidate running for president. He and I are speaking together on a panel in New Hampshire this weekend. But asking his supporters in Iowa to vote for Obama as their second choice makes no sense to me.
SHARE Sunday, June 12, 2011 What If UK Drops Out of All US Wars?
Before long public pressure might just lead Britain to drop out of participation in US wars, a move that would seriously damage future pretenses of acting as an international coalition.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 10, 2015 Cuba Is Hot
We arrived in Havana tonight, February 8, 2015, or year 56 of the revolution, 150 of us filling an entire airplane, a group of U.S. peace and justice activists organized by CODEPINK. The place is hot and beautiful despite the rain.
SHARE Monday, December 26, 2005 Fog Facts
Larry Beinhart, author of "Wag the Dog" and "The Librarian," has done us a remarkable service with the publication of a new small nonfiction book titled "Fog Facts."
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 9, 2015 If Paris Killers Had Western Media on Their Side
Some killings are reported on in a slightly different manner from how the Charlie Hebdo killings have been. Rewriting a drone killing as a gun killing (changing just a few words) would produce something like this:
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 13, 2015 Could a Plant Win a Presidential Debate?
I don't mean an infiltrator planted in a nefarious plot to throw an election. I mean a green, soil-rooted, leafy plant.
SHARE Monday, October 26, 2020 Troops Out of Germany and Down a Rabbit Hole
The only candidate for U.S. president that appeals to me is either the socialist whom Trump and Pence sometimes pretend Joe Biden is or the pacifist that the media sometimes pretends Trump is.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, September 26, 2014 Parliament and Congress Have No Power to Legalize War
Congress has fled town to avoid voting for or against a new war. Many of the big donors to Congressional campaigns would want Yes votes. Many voters would want No votes, if not immediately, then as soon as the panic induced by the beheading videos wears off, which could be within the next month.
SHARE Wednesday, June 15, 2016 We Should Be More Viking
A birth lottery winner, or a chooser behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance, today would likely end up not as a U.S. billionaire's child (much less a random U.S. child), but as a child in Scandinavia.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, November 19, 2007 Pelosi, Cheney, and the Fertilized Eggs
For the past year or so, every month the moon gets full, and I suddenly get a couple of hundred emails telling me that Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will allow impeachment hearings if she gets enough emails or phone calls or handwritten letters.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 28, 2011 The Danger of Simplicity
I'm not proposing that we mumble doctoral theses into television cameras. But we need to bear in mind that the medium is the moron. The people on the receiving end of television chatter are not as stupid as television itself.
SHARE Friday, January 6, 2006 The Madness of Michael Medved
Masochist that I am, I'm going to spend an hour today doing something I've done once before: trying to talk some sense into right-wing radio nutjob Michael Medved – or at least reach some of his listeners.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 11, 2019 10 Reasons Assange Should Walk Free
1. Governments' (monstrous and criminal) behavior should not be secret. People should know what their government is doing, and what a powerful foreign government is doing to their own countries. The actual results of the work of WikiLeaks have been hugely beneficial.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 10, 2015 Cuba Uncensored
This evening, February 9, 2015, a handful of visitors from the land to the north asked an assistant (or "instructional" which I take to be a step below "assistant") professor of philosophy about his studies and his teaching experiences here in Cuba.
SHARE Monday, May 6, 2019 Vote for What?
Joshua Douglas' new book, Vote for Us: How to Take Back Our Elections and Change the Future of Voting, does not explain when it was that we had our elections or what we can vote for other than "us," but it does provide a great survey of election reform efforts, who's working on them, and what's working, with a list of organizations at the back that you can engage with.
SHARE Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Six Generations of US War Opposition
The United States today may be the planet's greatest ever war maker, but the wars are fought, the bases maintained, and the weapons manufactured against the will of the majority of U.S. citizens.
SHARE Sunday, March 23, 2008 Building an Activist Movement to End the Occupation of Iraq
Robert Dreyfuss's presentation that I now have to follow was tremendous and I learned a lot, but I disagree with his pessimism. I am fond of the saying "Let's save our pessimism for better times." It's a choice to be a pessimist, and it is a wrong one, always.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 29, 2020 Drone Murder Has Been Normalized
If I search on Google for the words "drones" and "morality" most of the results are from 2012 through 2016. If I search for "drones" and "ethics" I get a bunch of articles from 2017 to 2020. Reading the various websites confirms the obvious hypothesis that (as a rule, with plenty of exceptions) "morality" is what people mention when an evil practice is still shocking and objectionable, whereas "ethics" is what they use when...
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 11, 2016 How to Oppose the Draft for Women and Not Be Sexist
For the majority of people in the United States who have no idea, yes, draft registration still exists, but only for males. However, the U.S. House of Representatives is interested in adding young women to the rolls.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 7, 2008 Celebrating Resisters on Veterans' Day
November 11th is Veterans' Day in the United States and Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, or Poppy Day in various other countries. It was on a November 11th that World War I ended.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, June 27, 2008 George W. Bush to Speak at Monticello on July 4
The Unitary Executive is scheduled to disgrace the grounds of Thomas Jefferson's house, Monticello, in Charlottesville, Va., making a speech on the morning of July 4, 2008.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 12, 2010 Our National Epidemic of Violence
If teabagging wakes us up to the realization that our approach to war is based on a bunch of glaze-eyed drooling madmen in search of elusive self-worth, perhaps it will have done us an important service. If Americans will stop killing Afghans because they now think it makes them Karzai's punks, then let's stop the killing and work on thinking clearly later.
SHARE Wednesday, May 28, 2014 Afghan Elections: Pick Your Poison
No human being wants to be ruled by their people's murderers. Forgiveness through restorative justice may be possible, but being ruled by murderers is asking for too much.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 14, 2015 Cuba: Land of Opportunity
What can I be sure of after only one week in Havana? Very little. There are exceptions to every pattern, and sometimes more exceptions than patterns. But a few claims, I think, are possible:
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, January 4, 2016 You Should Watch Making of a Murderer
There's a 10-hour documentary on Netflix with more to teach us than all the combined episodes of Star Wars.
(6 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 26, 2008 No More Investigations Please
In a December 31, 2007, editorial, the New York Times faulted the current president and vice president of the United States for kidnapping innocent people, denying justice to prisoners, torturing, murdering, circumventing U.S. and international law, spying in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and basing their actions on "imperial fantasies."
SHARE Friday, November 2, 2012 Swing State Pickup Lines
Hi. You're beautiful. And I don't give a damn who you're voting for.
SHARE Sunday, November 25, 2012 Howard Zinn's Echoes
We're approaching three years since Howard Zinn left us, and to my ear his voice sounds louder all the time.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 14, 2015 My Congressman Is Wrong On Iran and Yours Might Be Too
For the United States to sit and talk and come to an agreement with a nation it has been antagonizing and demonizing since the dictator it installed in 1953 was overthrown in 1979 is historic and, I hope, precedent setting. Let's seal this deal!
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 12, 2016 St. Paul, Minn. -- War Is A Lie
Video of my War Is A Lie event on June 11 with Veterans For Peace and Women Against Military Madness in St. Paul, Minnesota.
SHARE Tuesday, May 3, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Peter Enns on How Public Punitiveness Led to Mass Incarceration
Peter's new book, Incarceration Nation, (Cambridge University Press) explains why the public became more punitive in the 1960s, 70s, 80, and 90s, and how this increasing punitiveness led to the rise of mass incarceration in the United States.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 14, 2016 The Habit of Thought That Made U.S. #1 in Prisons and Wars
No matter how long I debunk and refute and mock and condemn arguments for wars, I continue over and over again to conclude that I'm still giving advocates for war too much credit. How ever little I take seriously as rational ideas the notions that U.S. wars can be defensive or humanitarian or peace-keeping, it's always too much. Wars' supporters, in large part, do not themselves actually hold such beliefs.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, July 24, 2009 US Troops Hiding in Iraqi Homes
A few words from U.S. troops in Iraq, all quoted in Chapter 1 of Dahr Jamail's brilliant new book "The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan":
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 31, 2009 Single Payer Summer
The U.S. House of Representatives has committed to bringing single-payer healthcare to a vote following summer recess. Stranger things have happened, greater obstacles have been overcome, than what would be involved in winning that vote, winning in the Senate, and compelling the president to sign the bill.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 30, 2010 Rep Payne: Obama Makes War OK
Congressman Payne: I Won't Oppose War Money Because Obama's President
SHARE Sunday, July 5, 2015 The 51-Day Genocide
Max Blumenthal's latest book, The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, tells a powerful story powerfully well. I can think of a few other terms that accurately characterize the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza in addition to "war," among them: occupation, murder-spree, and genocide. Each serves a different valuable purpose. Each is correct.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 6, 2016 Iniquity, the 0.000006%, and Who Pays $300k to Hear Hillary
The United States' 20 wealthiest people (The 0.000006 Percent) now own more wealth than the bottom half of the U.S. population combined, a total of 152 million people in 57 million households. The Forbes 400 now own about as much wealth as the nation's entire African-American population -- plus more than a third of the Latino population -- combined.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2016 Four Out of Four Pollsters Lack a Clue
Thursday evening at the University of Virginia four expert pollsters performed a dramatic act of self-experimentation in which they demonstrated that, using a map and two hands, they would still be incapable of finding their ass.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, January 11, 2021 How to Beat a Capitol Police Officer With an American Flag Pole
Eleven years ago, the Onion reported that the U.S. flag had been recalled after causing 143 million deaths. Last week, a Trumpy beat a Capitol Police officer with a pole holding a U.S. flag.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 27, 2010 Wars and Congress: Now What?
On Tuesday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill already passed by the Senate that funds a $33 billion, 30,000-troop escalation in Afghanistan. The vote was 308 to 114. What could the good news possibly be?
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, June 4, 2007 Ritter's Repudiation Ritual
In March 2006, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter posted an article online proposing that the antiwar movement learn techniques from warriors. Ritter developed the article into the recently released book "Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement." At the same time, Ritter has just posted online a new provocative article urging the impeachment movement to advocate instead for "repudiation."
SHARE Tuesday, March 24, 2009 Method to March Madness
In which I scientifically prove the outcome of the NCAA tournament, sort of.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 18, 2010 Ending Wars: The Flexible Waiverable Timetable Approach
Congress will soon vote on whether to spend another $33 billion of our money to escalate a war in Afghanistan that makes us less safe, violates the basic rule of law, kills innocent people, puts our children in debt, empowers the oil industry, and protects the heroin industry.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, May 23, 2016 Hey Kids! Try Collateral Damage at Home
One day a couple of weeks ago I was reading Saint Augustine while driving to the local convenience store, and I accidentally drove right through the front glass wall of the store, smashing up some shelves of junk food.
SHARE Monday, December 5, 2005 Roll Call Rolls Out Republican Lies
Here's contact info for Roll Call that you may find yourself wanting as you read this article.
Roll Call phone: 202/824-6800
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 20, 2008 A Letter from the Lurch
The lurch was first mentioned in Dante's "Purgatorio," and I had always wanted to go there. What can I say? I'm an adventurer. That's one reason I joined the military in the first place. Well, that and all the lies about money and college and not having to serve in Iraq. When I'd completed my third tour in Iraq and they stop-lossed me, it felt at least as bad as a ticket to purgatory. How could I stay still longer...
SHARE Tuesday, May 31, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Sam Husseini on Greatness of Katharine Gun, How to Vote, and Hillary v. Muslims
Husseini wrote an article titled "Katharine Gun's Risky Truth-telling" about a British official who crucially leaked evidence of NSA spying against UN officials during the buildup to the Iraq invasion. The Intercept has now published copies of the NSA's internal newsletter that fit into that story.
SHARE Wednesday, September 16, 2020 What Does WWII Have To Do With Military Spending
When you start talking about a major conversion to peaceful enterprises, or nuclear abolition, or the eventual abolition of militaries, you run headfirst into a surprising topic that has very little to do with the world you currently live in: WWII.
SHARE Sunday, August 20, 2006 The Best War Ever
Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber have a new book, which is always a good thing; but this one is especially good. It's called "The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq."
SHARE Tuesday, June 2, 2009 America's Future Moves Forward
Every year in Washington, D.C., the Campaign for America's Future (CAF) convenes the largest conference of activists positioned anywhere to the left of wherever the center has drifted off to.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 1, 2009 David Obey Still Thinks You're an Idiot
Two years ago, the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey, screamed at a friend of mine, Tina Richards, denouncing "idiot liberals" who are foolish enough to suggest that opposing a war should involve ceasing to fund it.
SHARE Thursday, December 5, 2013 I Googled "Evil" And It Took Me to Google
Google may have been, until now, the Obama of hip internet monopolies. No matter how many nations the President bombs, people still put Obama peace-sign stickers on their cars. No matter how many radical rightwing initiatives Google funds, people still think it's a "progressive corporation" -- How could it not be? It's making progress!
SHARE Saturday, October 17, 2020 From Indigenous People's Day to Armistice Day
November 11, 2020, is Armistice Day 103 - which is 102 years since World War I was ended at a scheduled moment (11 o'clock on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 - killing an extra 11,000 people after the decision to end the war had been reached early in the morning).
SHARE Wednesday, June 13, 2007 Rorty: The Best We've Ever Had
Whenever anyone asks me what author has had the greatest impact on me, I don't hesitate. There's no doubt that it's Richard Rorty. I consider him the most significant author of the past century, something I once told him, and which he had the humility to say and honestly believe was ludicrous. Richard Rorty died this week...
SHARE Monday, July 9, 2007 Want to Impeach Cheney? Think July 23rd
The impeachment movement is gaining traction, and now - over the next two weeks - is the time to push it all the way to success.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, August 3, 2015 Chicago's unknown hero of peace
S.O. Levinson was a lawyer who believed that courts handled interpersonal disputes better than dueling had done before it was banned. He wanted to outlaw war as a means of handling international disputes.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 22, 2021 Universality or Fighting Over Scraps
Why should rich people get pandemic survival checks? Why shouldn't descendants of enslaved people get reparations payments? Why should someone who doesn't go to college pay taxes to make college free? Why should smokers get health coverage? Why should someone get out of their student debt when I didn't?
SHARE Thursday, August 6, 2009 Six Months of Immunity
Drafted in preparation for panel discussion at Veterans for Peace national convention August 7, 2009, on topic of "Holding the Architects of Illegal Wars and War Crimes Accountable."
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, August 28, 2009 Torture Memos in a Book
The New Press has just published seven of the torture memos with a 40-page introduction by David Cole and a 3-page forward by Phillipe Sands. For those who prefer books to lengthy PDFs or printouts thereof, this is a real service. If we were a literate society, a book like this would put a number of important people behind bars.
SHARE Friday, August 14, 2015 Mark Warner Hides From Virginia Public
Senator Mark Warner's staff says he's holding only unannounced, closed-door meetings in Virginia this summer.
It's a good thing he doesn't have a job that requires knowing what the people of Virginia think about anything.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 27, 2006 California Can Impeach Bush and Cheney
There are three paths leading to impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. All three are being led by California.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 29, 2012 Obamobedience
Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine spoke prior to Obama's speech on Wednesday in Charlottesville, Va. He had praise for anyone signing up to go to war in Afghanistan. "We can still put our positive thumbprint on that nation," he said, to wild cheers.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, December 24, 2012 Doing Time for Peace
Hundreds of Americans, young and old, are regularly going to prison, sometimes for months or years or decades, for nonviolently resisting U.S. militarism.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, February 4, 2013 Rape as Collateral Damage
But there are epidemics of rape, of gang rape, of rape and torture, of rape and murder.
SHARE Tuesday, November 18, 2014 Watch Schooling the World, Stop Schooling the World
We should have one eye on what our governments and billionaires are doing to educate the rest of the world with the way of thinking that we are beginning to question.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 18, 2012 Klepetromilitatorship
Which came first, the oil business or the war machine that protects it? Who started this madness, the military that consumes so much of the oil or the corporations that distribute and profit from the filthy stuff?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 19, 2012 The Wait-Just-A-Goddam-Second Amendment
The Right-To-Bring-Assault-Weapons-to-School Second Amendment turns out to have its origins in an attempt to avoid maintaining standing armies.
SHARE Friday, January 23, 2015 Distrust But Verify
What the U.S. government does openly is many times worse than anything it can be doing secretly, and yet the secrets fascinate us.
(10 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 18, 2007 123 Silent Congress Members
Over two years ago, the following 123 Democratic Congress Members did something extraordinary.
SHARE Monday, September 2, 2013 Caveman Credibility and its Costs
Sending a bunch of $3 million missiles into Syria to blow stuff up will kill a great many men, women, and children directly. It will also kill a great many people indirectly, as violence escalates in response -- an established pattern recognized even by the war-promoting Washington Post.
SHARE Wednesday, November 26, 2008 You Cannot Pardon a Crime You Authorized
Statement from the Steering Committee for the Prosecution for War Crimes of President Bush and His Subordinates
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 29, 2014 When We're All Musteites
We won't necessarily know what a Musteite is, but I'm inclined to think it would help if we did. I'm using the word to mean "having a certain affinity for the politics of A.J. Muste."
SHARE Tuesday, January 26, 2016 Did Oregon Militants At Least Save the Constitution?
The Oregon tragi-comedy has left one dead, one injured, six arrested, some guys in Michigan trying to fix a water system with their guns, and millions of Americans deprived of intelligent television content for weeks.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, January 28, 2008 Road to Impeachment and Peace Runs Through Cleveland
Congressman Dennis Kucinich is facing a tough primary in five weeks in his working class district in Cleveland, Ohio. He's up against better funded opponents and the concerted effort of the corporate and media powers of Cleveland that have opposed him since long before he took that seat away from a Republican.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 15, 2013 A New Holiday Is Being Created for Peace
When I wrote When the World Outlawed War, I was struck by the significance of a forgotten day, a day matching the description in the 1950 folk song that begins "Last night I had the strangest dream . . . "
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 31, 2015 Identity Berned
Every time I write about a book about Bernie Sanders, somebody sends me a better one. If this keeps up, by the time his campaign is over I should be reading the best book ever written and be completely out of touch with reality. The latest is The Bern Identity by Will Bunch.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 21, 2014 Turn Left for Earth
Paul Krugman figured out this week that green energy pays for itself, but he seems to imagine that therefore it will be created, as if the corrupting influence of the fossil fuel profiteers just doesn't exist. We need to turn so far left that we abandon such naivete, stop yammering about transition fuels, abandon all talk of "peak oil" as if existing oil isn't sufficient to kill us all, and ...
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 19, 2016 Sue Saudi for 9/11 and U.S. for all its wars
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry say that allowing family members of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for its complicity in that crime would set a terrible precedent that would open the United States up to lawsuits from abroad.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 12, 2007 Eight Congress Members for Impeachment
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Chair of the Out of Iraq Caucus, has joined Congresswomen Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey, the two Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, as well as Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Chief Deputy Whip and a member of the Steering and Policy Committee, and Congress Members Yvette Clarke, William Lacy Clay, Albert Wynn, and Dennis Kucinich in cosponsoring Articles of Impeachment...
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 24, 2008 Speak With President of Vets for Peace Who Occupied National Archives
Tonight, Wednesday, September 24th, you can speak live on the radio or submit your questions through an online chat room for Elliott Adams, the president of Veterans for Peace and one of five veterans who yesterday climbed a 9-foot fence and occupied a 35-foot high ledge to raise a 22x8 foot banner stating, "DEFEND OUR CONSTITUTION. ARREST BUSH AND CHENEY: WAR CRIMINALS!"
SHARE Tuesday, March 7, 2006 "We Are Human, Like You"
A delegation of women from Iraq told stories last night in Washington, D.C., unlike anything we've ever heard about this war from the media in the United States. And the media was not there, so I'm going to tell you what they said.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 11, 2010 Did You Say $33 Billion?
Isn't it time to call what Congress will soon vote on by its right name: war escalation funding?
SHARE Thursday, January 29, 2015 When Shock and Awe Turns 12
Shock and Awe needs an initiation into a healthier adulthood. Luckily there is a peace movement planning an intervention for Shock and Awe's 12th birthday, coming up March 18-21 in Washington, D.C.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 3, 2016 Coy Barefoot and David Swanson on Ending Endless War
Award-winning journalist Coy Barefoot talks with author and peace activist David Swanson.
The Coy Barefoot Program is a project of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. It is broadcast every Sunday morning at 10a on ABC16 in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is rebroadcast each Thursday evening at 9p on WVPT-PBS.
SHARE Monday, November 28, 2005 A Congressman for Impeachment
"What's more moderate than exploring the truth? Is there really partisanship in truth?...We don't need to be afraid to use the word impeachment."
SHARE Sunday, March 30, 2008 Building a New World
The first international conference of the World Prout Assembly, entitled, "Building a New World," committed to ending imperialist wars and affirming models of cooperative, community-based economies and political activism, will be held May 22-25 at Radford University, Radford, Virginia.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, March 2, 2012 What's the Matter With Norway?
Fredrik Heffermehl's book "The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted," is a wonderful thing to discover.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 11, 2007 It Really Is a Democratic Congress
Should it go without saying that the current Congress is Democratic? The Democrats have the majority, control the agenda, and chair and hold a majority on every committee. But does that make the Congress Democratic?
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 25, 2007 Let Rove Lie
I think Karl Rove should be permitted to testify to Congress in private, without taking any oath, and without any record being kept of what he says. I had hoped we could avoid the indecency of having to spell out the reason why, but apparently we can't.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 11, 2007 Iran Lies
Here's the latest reason they must be telling the truth about Iran and the need for a new war: they lied about the last one.
SHARE Tuesday, December 4, 2007 Enough Heroes to Fill a Book
Resisters of the occupation of Iraq in the U.S., British, and Australian governments and militaries are plentiful enough to fill a book, and they've filled a good one.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 12, 2009 Go Inland, Young Progressives!
Separating the Midwestern state of Ohio, where soda's called "pop" and workers are sometimes allowed to unionize, from my East Coast home state of Virginia, where a governor perched on a diseased branch of my own family tree gave the nation its first right-to-work-for-less law, is nothing other than the beautiful and brutal mountains of West Virginia. As you climb those mountains headed west two things plummet to the valleys
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 24, 2012 How to Tell if a Candidate Backs War or Peace
I just had a chat with a Democratic candidate who has just about wrapped up his party's nomination for Congress here in Virginia's Fifth Congressional District.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 29, 2013 Opposition to Iraq War May Save Syria
Evidence of "weapons of mass destruction" is "no slam dunk," U.S. officials are saying this time around, reversing the claim made about Iraq by then-CIA director George Tenet.
SHARE Wednesday, December 9, 2020 Top 10 Ways Neera Tanden Has Been Misunderstood
When Neera Tanden emailed her colleagues in support of forcing Libya to pay for the privilege of having been bombed, many misunderstood, including one of her colleagues who emailed back objecting to creating what he supposed was an obvious financial incentive for bombing more countries.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 21, 2008 The Purloined Constitution
The wonderful thing about big lies is their kettle logic. The term, of course, derives from the story of the man who offered several mutually incompatible excuses for returning his friend's kettle in damaged condition: "It broke too easily." "It was like that when I got it." "I improved it for you." "I never borrowed the thing." Et cetera. A big lie is not just a beautiful creation because the bigger you make it the more firml
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 30, 2009 #1 Idea on Obama's Site
The number one policy proposal on the president's website and now second most popular proposal over all calls for prosecuting Bush and Cheney.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 10, 2012 Should Military Use Our $$ to Sponsor NASCAR Teams?
We spend $80 million a year on military sponsorships of sporting events, primarily NASCAR and primarily through the innocent-sounding National Guard.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, February 5, 2016 Bankers, Preachers, and Fear of President Sanders
The 2015-2016 presidential election has, by some measures, already accomplished more than all the previous elections in my lifetime put together. And it's scaring some of the right people.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, August 24, 2012 A Forgotten RNC
The acceptance speech of the Republican candidate for U.S. president in 1924 would have made a dramatic improvement on President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech of 2009.
SHARE Friday, January 15, 2021 (Re-)Joining the World
One of the many things we must rightly demand of the incoming U.S. government is the abandonment of rogue status, the serious participation in treaties, a cooperative and productive relationship with the rest of the world.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 10, 2007 On David Sirota, David Obey, and "Idiot Liberals," Never Mind Ending the War
At the Democrats' March 8, 2007 press conference, Obey made clear that he did not want to end any war at all. He wanted to shift the war from Iraq to Afghanistan, where the U.S. could, he said, attack "the people who attacked us."
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 27, 2007 What Now?
Over the past day or so, the following things have happened:
SHARE Saturday, April 5, 2014 DC Has Two Team Names to Change
Two professional sports teams in Washington, D.C., have intolerable names: the Redskins and the Nationals.
SHARE Wednesday, October 8, 2014 Urgent: Right-Left Alliance Needed to Stop This War!
Last year, public pressure played a big role in stopping US missile strikes on Syria. The biggest difference between then and now was that televisions weren't telling people that ISIS might be coming to their neighborhood to behead them.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 1, 2016 What Is a Global Citizen, and Can it Save Us?
Headlines this past week claimed that for the first time ever more than half of poll respondents around the world said they saw themselves more as a global citizen than as a citizen of a country. What did they mean in saying that?
SHARE Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Artists, and Advocates Urge Attorney General Holder to Uphold the Rule of Law
Several prominent Americans, including authors, artists, legal experts, and renowned voices of conscience, today transmitted a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urging the appointment of a prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture and other violations of human rights and civil liberties committed by former government officials and others.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 21, 2012 War and Being and Nothingness
The best book I've read in a very long time is a new one: "The End of War" by John Horgan. Its conclusions will be vigorously resisted by many and yet, in a certain light, considered perfectly obvious to some others.
SHARE Tuesday, November 10, 2009 Our Debt to Italy
The United States of America owes much of the hope it has right now of remaining what John Adams called "a nation of laws, not men" to Italian law enforcement. Were it not for the fact that Italian prosecutors, unlike their American counterparts, answer to the law rather than a president, the enforcement of laws against a massive crime spree by U.S. officials (and their Italian accomplices) would not have begun.
SHARE Friday, August 2, 2013 Global Hot Spots
Remarks at the War Resisters League's 90th Year Convention at Georgetown University, August 2, 2013.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 30, 2008 Should Conyers Impeach or Write Another Book About Bush's Crimes?
If anyone buys Conyers' staffs' new forthcoming book, it will be because Conyers is (or at least was) chair of the Judiciary Committee. And yet, the book's existence will demonstrate and it will document that Conyers was never any such thing, that in fact he's just a professor who uses public funds to pay his teaching assistants to write books in his name.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, December 13, 2013 Peace in the Pentagon
The contributions of military and former military peace activists have been tremendous: the throwing back of medals, the memorials and cemeteries erected in protest and grief, the reenactment of war scenes on the streets, the testimony confessing to crimes no one wants to prosecute. New people have been reached and opinions changed. And yet, I want to say there is a downside.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, April 11, 2011 Lesser-Evil Math Doesn't Compute: Freedom Plaza Has the Same Name as Tahrir Square
In an electoral system corrupted by money, media, and parties, the U.S. people are offered a choice every four years between two hideously awful candidates for an office that increasingly resembles an imperial throne. And increasingly the primary motivation of voters is to oppose the candidate they believe is the greater evil.
SHARE Monday, December 26, 2011 Stop Picking on the Poor Plutocrats
I stopped by a corporate chain bookstore this week and checked out the "Current Affairs" section. I was a little surprised to discover that according to a dozen or more books dominating the display we are all under a vicious life-and-death assault from a raving, drooling mob of communist devils led by that well-known pinko guerrilla Barack Obama.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 31, 2014 Should Israel Teach the Holocaust Less?
Humans almost invariably imagine humans to be far more imaginative and original than they are. But most of our ideas come from (often imperfect and improvised) imitation. And even more powerful than our tendency to imitate is our inability to refrain from imitating, to shake an idea out of our heads once it's there, to "not think of an elephant."
SHARE Monday, April 18, 2011 If Cairo Came to Kabul
Before Tahrir Square happened almost nobody predicted that President Hosni Mubarak would be forced out of office by a movement that didn't pick up a gun.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 4, 2009 Weiner Amendment Vote on Friday Will Fail and Serve as a Cover for Removing Kucinich Amendment
Word is that the full House will vote on national single-payer Medicare for All on Friday. This vote is a cover for the removal of an amendment that was in the House "healthcare" bill until Pelosi stripped it out. That amendment would have made it easier for states to enact single-payer, and still would if a conference committee is persuaded to reinstate it.
SHARE Tuesday, September 18, 2012 Veterans to Stand Firm as Afghan War Enters Year 12
Dedicated and disciplined nonviolent activists, and in particular military veterans, are being openly invited to join members of Veterans For Peace in a peaceful vigil in New York City that will as likely as not result in their wrongful arrest and prosecution.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 16, 2006 Homeland Dreamland
If you have not yet seen the film "Occupation Dreamland," I highly recommend it. Co-Director Garrett Scott died on March 2, but he truly accomplished something before he left.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 5, 2007 Six Judiciary Committee Members for Impeachment
Congressman Steve Cohen from Tennessee, and Congresswoman Shiela Jackson-Lee of Texas have signed onto H. Res. 333. That makes six Judiciary Committee members ready to impeach the Vice President.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 18, 2014 No Anti-War Voices on TV -- Well, Sort of
Here's FAIR's excellent report on pro-war bias in the corporate media, and here's Peter Hart describing it well on Democracy Now.
SHARE Monday, November 16, 2020 The New U.S. War on Western Sahara
I'm not misusing the word "war" to mean something like the war on Christmas or drugs or some TV pundit whom somebody else insulted. I mean war.
SHARE Sunday, January 10, 2021 Restoring the Threat of Impeachment for Future Office Holders
In the past 150 years, U.S. presidents have lied, cheated, stolen, warmongered, incited hatred and violence, driven inequality and corruption through the roof, taken over major powers from the Congress and abused them, gained the power of nuclear war and abused it through numerous threats, accelerated the destruction of the earth's environment, failed to protect the basic rights of people, pardoned their cronies . . .
SHARE Friday, February 15, 2008 Join Us for a Live Interview With "Uncounted" Director David Earnhardt
As we muddle our way through primary elections fraught with errors, fraud, and suppression, it's useful to look back at the elections of 2004 and 2006. So, on Wednesday February 20th, from 8 to 9 p.m. ET I'll be interviewing David Earnhardt live online, and you can phone in with your questions.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 4, 2008 Prosecute Yoo?
Requesting the prosecution of a known criminal ought not to be an action that requires any particular consideration or debate.
SHARE Thursday, July 16, 2009 Will Congress Ban States from Providing Healthcare?
The healthcare legislation under consideration in Congress would prevent states from improving on what Congress creates. An amendment is under consideration right now in a House committee that would change that, leaving the federal initiative as is but permitting states to do better.
SHARE Monday, December 26, 2005 Bush Administration Refuses to Comply With FOIA Request on Pre-War Intelligence
The White House and the Departments of State and Defense have for six months refused to comply with a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act by 52 Congress Members – a request seeking information on the Bush Administration's reasons for going to war.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 20, 2008 19 Percent Approve of Bush
George W. Bush has set a record for unpopularity that may stand for all time: He now has a 19 percent approval rating.
SHARE Thursday, September 25, 2014 A National Call: Save Civilian Education
Over the last several decades, the Pentagon,conservative forces, and corporations have been systematically working to expand their presence in the K-12 learning environment and in public universities.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 17, 2006 Republicans for Impeachment
Everyone's on message. The right-wing pundits, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Rush Limbaugh, Nancy Pelosi. They're all trying to tell us that raising a demand for impeachment is good for Republicans.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 12, 2007 Sen. Clinton Wants Troops in Iraq for at Least 10 Years
...And Koppel adds that he spoke with someone from the Pentagon who briefs Clinton, and that she had told this person that if she is elected and reelected, she expects to have troops in Iraq at the end of her second term.
(39 comments) SHARE Friday, January 25, 2008 Who's Worse, Clinton or Paul?
Let's assume, just for the sake of masochism or preparedness, that the Republicans nominate McCain or somebody similar, that the Democrats nominate Clinton, and that Paul runs as an independent or libertarian. Here's a question for those who care about peace and justice: Who's worse, Clinton or Paul?
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 18, 2010 Vancouver: Liquid City
When they schedule the olympics in a city, the city usually schedules a massive international advertising campaign for its greatness as "the best place on earth," which is actually the brilliant and oh-so-convincing motto selected by Vancouver, Canada, next host of the winter olympics.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 20, 2007 Curbing the Imperial Presidency
We must end the worst excesses of the imperial presidency, Conyers said. (What about the rest of the imperial presidency?)
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 8, 2009 Omnibus CYA Act of 2009
A healthy rivalry between the branches of government is the soul of our republic, so when the Senate's proposed ban on releasing photos and videos of torture fell short of completely covering things up, the White House proposed allowing prisoners to plead guilty to capital crimes and be executed without actual trials that might reveal evidence. Preemption being the technique of the hour, I'm going to preemptively fill you in
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, September 24, 2010 Fearing the Masses
Now it's people who are afraid of majority rule and want to avoid it.
SHARE Tuesday, February 11, 2014 A People's Movement to End All War
When people sign the declaration of peace at WorldBeyondWar.org they have the opportunity to type in a brief statement in their own words. Thousands have done so, including those pasted below.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 26, 2007 Presidential Candidates Diverge
There are now two types of Democratic presidential candidates, the ones who promise to end the occupation of Iraq, and the ones who say they may very well keep it going for another four years.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 2, 2009 McChrystal Must Testify
On Thursday, 22 Democratic congress members introduced a bill to deny funding to any escalation of war in Afghanistan, and 60 Democratic senators voted that Congress should not even speak to a general about that war until after the president has decided whether to escalate it. These two actions come out of very different understandings of war powers.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 9, 2009 What the OPR Torture Report Will Not Say
It's October 23, 2002, and you're Jay Bybee, the man in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the United States Department of Justice. John Yoo and a bunch of other lawyers willing to claim that absolutely anything is legal work for you. But you'd much rather be a judge. That would be a cushy job, a lifetime job, a job with a book of the Bible named for it, a job where you would get to decide which crimes to legalize...
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 29, 2014 A Good End Date for the New War Is Today
Here's my basic contention: Congress knows how to compromise. We don't have to pre-compromise for them.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 20, 2006 Conservatives and Conscience
John Dean, former legal counsel to Richard Nixon, is 95% recovered from a long bout of conservatism, and he doubts that many others can make the same recovery, but I don't.
SHARE Sunday, June 1, 2008 Goodnight Bush
And goodnight to Dick Cheney whispering "Hush."
SHARE Wednesday, March 30, 2011 On Visiting an Unwinnable War
I'll be visiting my nation's longest war next week in Afghanistan, thanks to a wonderful organization called Voices for Creative Nonviolence which seeks to build friendship and understanding between countries.
SHARE Wednesday, October 21, 2015 U.S. Wants More "Usable" Nuclear Weapons in Europe
The United States keeps nuclear weapons in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Turkey, in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which bans the transfer of nuclear weapons from a nuclear weapon state to a non-nuclear weapon state. Now, the U.S. wants to upgrade its nukes in Europe, to make them "precision" and "guided," and therefore more likely to be used, even as tensions build with Russia.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 27, 2007 Cheney Impeachment: Mainstream Media Wakes Up
Rep. Wexler: As we prepare to celebrate the New Year, my resolution is to hold George Bush and Dick Cheney accountable for their abuses of power.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 27, 2008 VIDEOS: 911 Rescue Workers Need Health Care
Yesterday in the rain in front of the U.S. Capitol hundreds of 911 rescue workers who risked their lives in a toxic mess they were told was safe piled off buses from New York. They held a rally with a handful of Congress Members and asked Congress to get them health care so that they can stop suffering every day while we slaughter people abroad in their names and in the name of those who died that day.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 13, 2016 Why Do Ethics Classes Fantasize About Murder So Much?
At a post-screening discussion where I questioned the director of Eye in the Sky about the disconnect between his drone-kill movie and reality, he launched into a bunch of thought-experiment stuff of the sort I've tried to avoid since finishing my master's in philosophy. Mostly I've avoided hanging out with torture supporters.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 6, 2006 Nine State Democratic Parties Back Impeachment: Whose Table Is It, Nancy?
Nominal leader of the Democrats in Congress Nancy Pelosi, following talking points produced by the Republican National Committee, recently told her fellow Dems to keep impeachment off the table. This past weekend, the Democratic Parties in Maine, New Hampshire, and Hawaii passed resolutions demanding impeachment. This, of course, raises the question: Whose table is it, Nancy?
SHARE Friday, February 7, 2014 Are We Done With War Now?
Polls showed a large percentage of us in this country supporting the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and even -- though somewhat reduced -- the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But not long after, and ever since, a majority of us have said those were mistakes.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 6, 2014 We Won't Forget Wisconsin
A new film called Wisconsin Rising is screening around the country, the subject, of course, being the activism surrounding the mass occupation of the Wisconsin Capitol in 2011.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 23, 2007 The I Word in the Boston Globe
Here's an article in Sunday's Boston Globe about impeachment, followed by a letter submitted to the Globe's editor.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 28, 2016 A Nation Too Stupid to Benefit From its Immigrants?
The millions of people in the United States who are denied equal rights because they are immigrants have vast stockpiles of wisdom and rich culture to share; they engage in more strategic and courageous activism than do non-immigrants; and without any doubt they would vote better than do the "legal" people of South Carolina if only they were permitted to vote. The mistreatment of these people shortchanges every US enterprise.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 19, 2015 Beyond Vietghanistan
Text of "Beyond Vietghanistan: A Time To Break Treaties"
By Rev. Martin Luther Obama Jr. - January 19, 2015
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 14, 2016 Hillary, Hypocrisy, and Healthcare
In a video from February 2008, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton passionately denounces candidate Barack Obama for criticizing her healthcare plan and daring to "discredit universal healthcare."
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, March 7, 2016 The Killer Drone Lovers Have Their Movie
If the recent spate of anti-drone movies and plays was making you feel warm thoughts about U.S. culture, you'll want to avoid seeing "Eye in the Sky," starring Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, and Aaron Paul. This is what "Zero Dark Thirty" was for torture lies. This is what "The Interview" was for hatred of North Korea.
SHARE Saturday, April 27, 2019 The Secretary of the Navy Lied to Congress
Read this Military.com article from Friday: "Do U.S. High Schools Bar Military Recruiters? Activists Try to Call Pentagon's Bluff." It discusses the offer that Pat Elder and I made to award funding to any school that could be identified as one of the over 1,100 public high schools that the Secretary of the Navy told Congress in December bar military recruiters. The article states:
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 18, 2020 Top 12 Reasons Biden Is Not My Fault
When the Democratic Party decided it preferred Trump to Bernie and would rather nominate to run against Trump a more corporate-friendly candidate who was polling more weakly against Trump, there were in theory at least two choices.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 21, 2010 I Won't Vote for You If You Vote to Escalate War
Congress is about to consider whether to vote for another $33 billion, not to continue but purely to escalate the level of war in Afghanistan by sending more troops and contractors. A No vote needs to be rewarded, and a Yes vote punished.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 26, 2012 Panetta: Military Spending Is Going Up
On Thursday, Leon Panetta held a press conference announcing what he called "cuts" to military spending. The first question following his remarks pointed out that the "cuts" are to dream budgets, while the actual spending will be increased over Panetta's 10-year plan.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, August 30, 2013 Cruise Missile Law Enforcement
The White House is treating the Syrian government like a potential drone strike victim.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 11, 2015 Read Mumia
Mumia's commentaries from prison are as informed and more insightful than many from academia. And less compromising.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, February 16, 2007 What Lincoln Really Said
Alaska Congressman Don Young just attempted on the floor of the House to quote Abraham Lincoln's opinion on opposition to presidents' war plans. Young failed rather dramatically.
SHARE Tuesday, June 22, 2010 Hoyer Can't Handle Questions
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer spoke Tuesday morning in a large private room (the Columbus Room) at Union Station in Washington, D.C. and took questions. He had no answers for the questions I put to him.
SHARE Wednesday, March 15, 2006 Harman vs. Winograd, Tough Choice?
For the past 10 months I've worked on a project at www.afterdowningstreet.org to urge Congress Members to hold the Bush Administration accountable for crimes and abuses of power. Some Democratic members of Congress have been as helpful in this effort as Fox News. Some have been less. In that last category you can list Jane Harman.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 25, 2010 Of Cutting Gas Lines
Here in Virginia where we're addicted to the practice of killing people in order to teach them not to kill people, there are certain things that must not be said about the moron(s) who cut a gas line to a backyard grill at the home of the brother of a congressman who voted for a health insurance bill.
SHARE Sunday, August 11, 2013 Her Name Is Jody Williams
Jody Williams' new book is called My Name Is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl's Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize, and it's a remarkable story by a remarkable person. It's also a very well-told autobiography, including in the early childhood chapters in which there are few hints of the activism to come.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 24, 2007 Moving Impeachment Forward
Congressman Dennis Kucinich plans to introduce articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney. It's time now for us to follow through by asking the rest of Congress to get on board with the American public, and by letting the media know where we stand.
SHARE Monday, July 26, 2010 Progressive Democrats of America Energized by National Conference
Progressive Democrats of America marked the beginning of its seventh year with a three-day conference that brought hundreds of activist leaders from all over the country to a Cleveland, Ohio, hotel this past weekend.
SHARE Wednesday, October 31, 2012 Veterans Plan Armistice Day Events in Over 50 U.S. Cities
Veterans for Peace chapters across the nation are meeting in major cities to celebrate the original Armistice Day as was done at the end of World War I, when the world came together in realization that war is so horrible we must end it now.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 25, 2019 Westminster Abbey to Give Thanks for Nuclear Weapons
Last week I tweeted this: "The U.S. military wants to fly small nuclear power plants into wars in order to power the wars' weaponry. Because there was some chance we might not all die fast enough if nothing this stupid was tried." I linked to a report on this insane idea. Someone replied: "The Navy already does this."
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 5, 2021 A Treaty to Ban the Political Use of Religion
As we get ready to celebrate the treaty banning nuclear weapons becoming law in over 50 countries (with hopefully many more to soon be added), another effort to create a global treaty is getting started. This one would ban the political use of religion. Or rather, it would ban the malevolent political use of religion.
SHARE Tuesday, September 18, 2012 U.S. Veterans Urge Canada to Let War Resister Stay
We are writing you on behalf of thousands of military veterans in the United States who believe that Kimberly Rivera and her family should be allowed to remain in Canada.
SHARE Friday, September 18, 2020 Six Reasons Julian Assange Should Be Thanked, Not Punished
The effort to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange for journalism is a threat to future journalism that challenges power and violence, but a defense of the media practice of propagandizing for war.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 29, 2008 You're Two
You're two today and you're napping.
SHARE Sunday, March 22, 2009 Iraq: Deaths Rise, Pretense We Care Fades
While the U.S. media obsesses over teeny fractions of the trillions of dollars the U.S. government is giving to bankers, 130,000 troops and 160,000 contractors continue to occupy Iraq in the name of the United States, and very few Iraqis are convinced they will ever leave, while even fewer want them to stay.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 19, 2012 Italy 1, CIA Torturers 0
Forza Italia! After years of appeals, Italy's highest court has upheld the conviction of 23 Americans involved in a CIA kidnapping of a man off the street in Milan, whom the CIA shipped to Egypt to be brutally tortured.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 26, 2014 Misplaced Lessons of Tahrir
I still want Dirty Wars to win the Oscar, but The Square is a documentary worth serious discussion as we hit the three-year point since the famous occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo that overthrew Mubarak -- in particular because a lot of people seem to get a lot of the lessons wrong.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 17, 2008 Randi Rhodes Puts Robert Wexler Over 200,000
The Randi Rhodes Show worked its magic today just as it used to do for www.afterdowningstreet.org almost three years ago. Congressman Robert Wexler came on and discussed the need for Cheney impeachment hearings. His petition at http://wexlerwantshearings.com passed the 200,000 mark before the show was over.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, December 5, 2008 Unlimited Pardon Power and Five Other Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Alice squinted as she peered up through the rabbit hole at sunlight wondering how many books she might have to stand on to be able to climb back out. She hadn't even begun to make up her mind when she was completely distracted by a large elephant on a motor scooter who grabbed her with his trunk and stuck her on the back seat as he sped off down a dark gravel path.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 4, 2021 Yemen Yes! Now Afghanistan!
If the U.S. government follows through on what President Joe Biden said today about Yemen, that war's days are numbered.
SHARE Tuesday, September 23, 2008 Blood, Sweat, and Bailouts
Have you heard the latest news? John McCain is now in favor of regulating Wall Street.
SHARE Tuesday, April 17, 2007 Another Path to Peace: The Case for Kucinich
The Democratic leadership in Congress wants the war to be around in 2008 so that a Democrat can win the White House by "opposing" the war. Congressman Rahm Emanuel has explained this to the Washington Post. The ONLY way to convince the top Democrats that this calculation is wrong is to promote in the presidential primary the only candidate who is trying in every way possible to end the war now. If we do that...
SHARE Tuesday, February 10, 2015 Cuba Is Good for Your Health
"It's behind us," Fernando Gonzales of the Cuban Five said with a smile when I told him just a few moments ago that I was sorry for the U.S. government having locked him in a cage for 15 years.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Conversion to Peaceful Industries Just Happened
The greatest impediment to doing anything, for homo sapiens, is often that it hasn't already been done. "Well, sure, that sounds easy enough, but I just don't know. I've never seen it done and my cousin's friend heard it was impossible."
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 2, 2015 Born at War
Foreword to America's Oldest Professions: Warring and Spying (available in Kindle version free this week.)
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 7, 2016 Berning Down Wall Street
I don't know where this will end but every time I write about a book on Bernie Sanders, somebody sends me a larger one. At least my arms are getting stronger from lifting the things. One point is clear to me: if the media ever wanted to catch up on all the coverage of Bernie's campaign that it has foregone, it could do it with a minimum-wage staffer reading aloud from books.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 20, 2010 A Candidate in VA-05 Opposes War Spending
In an interview I recorded on Tuesday with Jeff Clark, an independent candidate for Congress in Virginia's Fifth District, and the father of a Marine currently in Afghanistan, Clark told me he was opposed to putting another $33 billion into escalating the war in Afghanistan.
SHARE Monday, September 3, 2012 Writing Down Rants
In an age when the "conservative" political party cracks jokes about the destruction of the only planet we have to live on, and the other party -- which actually holds that 90% of governing power that now resides in the White House -- gets a free pass on its record of destroying that planet because the other party cracks jokes about it, cool dispassionate political science textbookese is out of place.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 6, 2013 How the Pentagon Removes Entire Peoples
The U.S. military has displaced and continues to displace for the construction of its bases the entire populations of villages and islands, in blatant violation of international law, basic human decency, and principles we like to tell each other we stand for.
SHARE Friday, January 27, 2006 85 Percent of Democrats in PA Likely to Vote for Pro-Impeachment Candidates
A new poll conducted in Pennsylvania (a battleground "purple" state) by Zogby International and commissioned by OpEdNews.com found that 84.9 percent of Democrats said they would be likely to vote for a congressional candidate who "supports having impeachment proceedings against President Bush."
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, February 19, 2007 The Fierce Urgency of Impeachment
The founders knew that democracy could only be maintained through eternal vigilance. But we – or perhaps more G.E. and Disney than we – have substituted for eternal vigilance an eternal election season.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 9, 2007 Questions for General Petraeus
Are you here to communicate your own view, that of the White House, or both?
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 29, 2008 One of Key SOTU Lies Was a Rerun
And did you notice that even in the 2008 State of the Union, when Bush claims new powers, Congress cheers?
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 28, 2009 Congress Must Stop Torture
ADD YOUR NAME TO THOSE OF 83 HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS AND LEADERS
SHARE Tuesday, May 29, 2012 Obama's Principles and Will Create Kill List as Test for New York Times
The New York Times chose this "terror Tuesday" to publish an article called "Secret 'Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and Will," a bizarre article that never explains what Obama's principles or will are or even offers any evidence that Obama has any principles or will.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, October 31, 2008 How and Why I Just Voted
Having spent the past several years trying to end wars and militarism, I have just voted for a presidential candidate who seems intent on expanding them.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 3, 2009 Who SHOULD Decide About War?
Who should decide: we the people of the world, through democratically created and enforced international and national and state laws.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, March 19, 2012 No Justice Without Peace
The Military Industrial Complex is a banker bailout every year.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 6, 2009 What's the Real Reason?
The Pentagon is starting to cut weapons programs, and peace groups are bound to cheer.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 19, 2009 Truckfuls of Bodies
Michael Vick, the football player who's all over the news, should have tortured humans instead of dogs. Then we would have been told to overlook it for the sake of moving forward.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 6, 2019 A Green New Basic Income Guarantee
U.S. military spending eight years ago was at $1.2 trillion per year, when one added in the nukes in the Energy Department, the Homeland Security Department, the CIA, interest on debt, veterans' care, etc. Now it's at $1.3 trillion.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 23, 2009 Astroturfing on the Left
We've grown accustomed to recognizing astroturfing on the right. But what about astroturfing on the left? How do we feel about that? Here's an example.
SHARE Monday, November 26, 2007 Kucinich in Virginia
Dennis Kucinich will be in Charlottesville VA on Friday, December 7th. This will be his Virginia event, and we'll promote it statewide.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, August 28, 2009 Holder's Bad Applism and Our Own
Attorney General Eric Holder is addressing a war crime without addressing the wars, and is focusing on the lowest ranking participants in that crime without addressing its status as official policy established by higher ups and openly confessed to by a former president and vice president. This is bad applism, the same approach that has held a handful of recruits responsible for Abu Ghraib, claiming to thereby remove bad apple
SHARE Friday, November 20, 2009 IRAQ MASH
I had to read a lot of books about the current war and occupation in Iraq before I found one that's laugh out-loud hilarious.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 25, 2010 Petraeus Announces for President After All
Ass Kissing Little Chicken ShitMy name is General David Petraeus and I want to be your Commander in Chief because I admire everything about you, especially that amazing and unique way you have about you.
SHARE Tuesday, November 23, 2010 Mickey Z. Interviews David Swanson on War Lies
If Dwight D. Eisenhower was correct when he declared, "Public opinion wins war," then public opinion can also end or prevent wars
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 17, 2009 Perriello, Peace, and Justice
Peace and justice activists in Virginia's Fifth District were thrilled last November when we and our neighbors replaced Congressman Virgil Goode with Tom Perriello. We got together and held a couple of meetings to discuss what we might begin talking with the new congressman-elect about. On February 17th we finally met with him. This brief report may prove somewhat useful to others meeting with their representatives.
SHARE Saturday, January 7, 2006 A Peace Movement Demanding the Rule of Law
President Nixon famously said that if the President does it, it's legal. And he didn't think that up on his own – that's a way of thinking that has long had currency in America.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 9, 2008 Taibbi Gets It Halfway Right
In "Chicken Doves" Matt Taibbi correctly denounces the phony, monied, Democratic-front antiwar movement without acknowledging the real one. United for Peace and Justice, and other organizations serious about peace, struggle against a corrupt Congress, a pseudo peace movement with lots more money than we have, and reporters like Taibbi who pretend that a major movement that is actually working for peace with projects like this
SHARE Friday, September 9, 2005 The Popularity of Peace and Presidents
While it seems distinctly unlikely that people will yet begin approving of Bush because there was a hurricane, it is at least conceivable that people will stop giving him credit for having occupied the White House and possessed a pulse on 9-11.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, December 1, 2008 As Congress Lay Dying
The debate among progressive activists and commentators in recent weeks has tended to range from the leave- Obama- alone- and- he'll- fix- everything position to the stage- a- protest- at- Obama's- house- for- the- next- month position, including numerous stances in between those extremes.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 12, 2007 Questions for Candidates
If, like General Electric and Fox News, ordinary citizens were permitted to ask questions of candidates for U.S. President, these are a few of the questions I think they might ask:
SHARE Wednesday, June 6, 2007 Iraq Idea: Better Than Calling Congress
Americans should keep lobbying Congress to end the occupation of Iraq, but should also try lobbying the Iraqi government, which appears more open to listening.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 15, 2008 If Waxman Were to Act
Congressman Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, together with his staff, produces incredibly valuable research and analysis, with infinite patience and futility.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 23, 2014 Peacenvironmentalism
We are asking kids to lead the way on the environment, because we -- I'm speaking collectively of everyone over 30, the people Bob Dylan said not to trust until he was over 30 -- we are not doing it.
SHARE Friday, October 20, 2006 Interview with Dennis Loo, Co-Editor of "Impeach the President"
...the scales on some people's eyes in America were washed away by that storm, and by the federal response to it, and it made it possible at that point to conceive of a movement possibly getting strong enough to be able to drive out this régime...
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, August 10, 2007 Resistance of One
There is something else we can try. If you've given up on staging marches and rallies, or if – like me – you haven't but you want to try something else as well, and if you've given up on lobbying Congress as pointless, or if – like me – you haven't but you want to try something else as well, and if educating your fellow citizens as to exactly how completely corrupt the whole system is seems like an incomplete answer...
SHARE Friday, April 11, 2008 Where Your Tax Dollar Will and Will Not Go
During an endless airplane trip from hell yesterday that included an extended stay in Chicago's scenic O'Hare airport, I had the misfortune to read one book about where our tax dollars go and another book that was, indirectly, about where they do not go.
SHARE Monday, March 23, 2009 What More in the Name of Love
If there is a day for mass action in the United States for peace and justice, April 4 is it. And if there is a place for it right now, it's Wall Street. April 3rd is a Friday, so more robber barons will be at "work" that day, but April 4th is a Saturday, so more of the robbed will be off work and able to take part.
SHARE Wednesday, April 19, 2006 Iranian Irony
Self-confessed terrorist activities against the Iranian government? Hmm. Who is it that is currently proposing to engage in some of those? Wait, don't tell me.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 15, 2007 Murtha Only Intends to Undo the Escalation
In a video interview with Tom Andrews Congressman Jack Murtha makes clear that the limitations on additional war money that he intends to include in the forthcoming "emergency" supplemental bill are aimed only at undoing the recent escalation (a.k.a. "surge"), not at ending the war.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 3, 2014 The Video Is Mightier Than the Missile
Can a video help change the world? It's one of a great many tools we're developing, and yes we hope it can.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 18, 2007 It All Started With an American Taliban
It began with that monstrous young man so evil we needed to blindfold him and strap him to a board, that confusing young man who looked like Christ but cast us in the role of crucifiers, that treasonous young man who brought dark and heathen evils across linguistic and cultural borders and brought torture onto the list of accepted government actions.
SHARE Tuesday, July 6, 2010 "Inside Out" Tells It Like It Might Be
But the insights into the emotions of the characters come from the author's honest assessment of torture, murder, and what these things do to the torturers and the murderers.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, December 17, 2012 The Government and Your Guns
We're in the grip of twin madnesses, and those who have overcome one of them can still be completely controlled by the other.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 3, 2015 War with Russia or with ISIS: What ever happened to peace?
According to the Nation magazine and many others, there are two options available to the U.S. government. One is increased hostility perhaps leading to nuclear war with Russia. The other is a joint U.S.-Russia-and-others war on ISIS.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 18, 2009 It Could Happen to Yoo
Sometimes, during a tsunami of bad news, it's nice to come up for a breath of encouraging air. The only way to do that this week that I know of is to read a beautiful 42-page order by a judge (PDF). Usually such things don't strike me as beautiful, but this one says that leading torture lawyer John Yoo can be sued in court by one of his victims.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 22, 2013 Global Rescue Plan
When the wealthy nations of the world meet as the G8 or in any other gathering, it's interesting to imagine what they would do if they followed the golden rule, valued grandchildren, disliked unnecessary suffering, or wished to outgrow ancient forms of barbarism, or any combination of those.
SHARE Tuesday, October 1, 2013 Save the Nobel Peace Prize from Itself
On October 11, we'll learn whether the Norwegian Nobel Committee is interested in reviving the Nobel Peace Prize or putting another nail in its coffin.
SHARE Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Polk Puts Cost at $6 Trillion, Warns of Terrorism in US
11:31 Woolsey said she knows Bush will veto any bill that ends the occupation. She asks Polk if Congress should only pass what it knows is right, even knowing it will be vetoed. For the first time all day the room breaks out into applause, loud applause.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, December 3, 2010 Short Guide to Political Salvation
Yet we cannot throw those employed by the war machine out of work. Instead, we need to convert the factories making unnecessary and unhelpful weapons into factories making trains and solar panels and other useful products.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 24, 2008 Congress Hears Ringing Call for Impeachment
The House Judiciary Committee today, Friday, July 25th, will put impeachment squarely back "on the table" and restored to its prominent place in our Constitution.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 8, 2009 In the Name of Womanhood and Humanity
Imagine that tomorrow you begin to feel ill and rush to the hospital where you are eventually diagnosed with a horribly debilitating and probably incurable disease.
SHARE Tuesday, July 31, 2007 300 Towns, Cities, States Oppose Iraq Occupation
John Cavanagh of the Institute for Policy Studies opened an event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Cavanagh announced that with the recent addition of Santa Fe, N.M., a total of exactly 300 towns, cities, and states have passed resolutions against the occupation of Iraq. These governments, he said, represent about 50% of the people in the United States.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 4, 2008 How the Associated Press Lies About the Occupation of Iraq
This typical pre-Petraeus II article shows well the habit that the AP and most of the rest of the US corporate media have of lying about the funding of the occupation of Iraq:
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, July 13, 2007 John Edwards' Money and His Health Plan
In "Sicko," Dr. Linda Peeno appears testifying before Congress that, when working for Humana, she made a decision to deny a Humana member treatment for a heart transplant, a decision that cost the patient his life but saved the company $500,000. Peeno says she was not punished, but rather rewarded, for such conduct. The money she saved the company was approximately the same amount paid to Edwards as salary.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 31, 2008 Epiphany
Congress will be greeted on day 1 this year by a march of war dead on Capitol Hill.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 29, 2007 Obama Comes to Virginia
I'm live-blogging an Obama rally here in Charlottesville VA. I just wrote 10' tall in chalk on the Charlottesville "Freedom of Expression Wall" the following: "Hey, Barack, If you'll filibuster the spying, why won't you filibuster the war funding?" I'd love to actually ask him, but I couldn't afford the $1,000 for the small gathering that is just ending.
SHARE Tuesday, March 4, 2008 New Hampshire Catches Impeachment Fever
New Hampshire State Representative Betty Hall is the chief sponsor of a resolution to be voted on this week in the state legislature, a resolution to petition Congress to impeach Bush and Cheney. Hall asked people to Email her their thoughts, and she is receiving more than one Email per minute, almost all of them from New Hampshire, but some from other states and countries, and every single one of them supportive.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 18, 2009 Spring Break for Iraq
We're now at 6 years of bloody and horrific occupation of Iraq, and 7.5 years in Afghanistan. That means that most college students in the United States were not yet college students when this began.
SHARE Tuesday, April 30, 2019 Does Washington D.C. Need a U.S. Embassy?
Here I am sleeping at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington D.C. so that a coup government led by a graduate of George Washington University a few blocks from here doesn't take the place over or send the U.S. Secret Service (and what the hell is secret about them?) to do it, and I keep wishing that the U.S. government could find the nerve to overthrow itself for a change.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 29, 2013 Unmanned
The new film Unmanned: America's Drone Wars should be required viewing in all schools and homes in the United States, including the home of the U.S. president who could not be bothered to meet with the child victims of his drones who spoke in Congress this week.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 5, 2007 Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney Makes the Case for Impeachment
Congresswoman McKinney on December 27, 2006, entered into the Congressional Record (pages E2253 - 2255) extended remarks on impeachment that merit our close attention.
SHARE Thursday, June 19, 2014 The Democratic Push to Bomb Iraq Again
People forget the extent to which Democrats, who controlled the U.S. Senate at the time, pushed for and supported the 2003 attack on Iraq. Remember them or not, theeeeeeeeeey're back!
SHARE Monday, May 27, 2013 An Endless "Peace Process" for Palestine
The United States balances its endless war of terrorism with the institution of an endless "peace process" for Palestine, a process valuable for its peaceyness and interminability.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, June 2, 2008 Will McCain Name Torture Ships for Big Donors?
The United States maintains secret prisons on ships in the ocean in order to detain people outside the reach or even the knowledge of any system of law, the better to torture the ever-living cheney out of them.
SHARE Friday, February 8, 2013 What Mark Warner Asked John Brennan
When CIA nominee John Brennan faced the Senate Select Committee on So-Called Intelligence on Thursday, countless critical and cutting questions had been prepared by bloggers and journalists. None of them were asked.
(8 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 31, 2006 The Ethics of Palestinian Resistance
With Jimmy Carter's book a best seller and the Iraq War a top political concern, many Americans may have an interest right now in thinking about Israel and Palestine. I'd like to recommend to anyone with that interest picking up a copy of a short and brilliant book by the British philosopher Ted Honderich called "Right and Wrong and Palestine, 9-11, Iraq, 7-7."
SHARE Friday, June 8, 2007 Seven Congress Members for Impeachment
Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has joined Lynn Woolsey, the other Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Congress Members Yvette Clarke, Jan Schakowsky, William Lacy Clay, Albert Wynn, and Dennis Kucinich in cosponsoring Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney (H. Res. 333).
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, July 18, 2008 English Translation of a John Conyers Press Release
Below is the original text of a July 17, 2008, media advisory from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers in the original Pelosiconi, followed by the English in all caps.
SHARE Thursday, September 24, 2009 The Conyers-Bybee Love Story
There is strong evidence that John Conyers, Patrick Leahy, and most of the rest of us are in love with torture-lawyer Jay Bybee. I'm not talking about sexual love and wouldn't, because people's lives are lost to such bread-and-circuses journalism every day. I'm talking deep personal devotion.
SHARE Tuesday, September 23, 2014 ISIS, Weapons Makers, Thugs Benefit from This Crime
President Obama is bombing the opposite side in Syria from the side he swore we needed to attack one year ago, and those pleased by this declare that he is "doing something."
SHARE Wednesday, January 6, 2016 Should Criminalizing War Start by Pretending It's Legal?
The book's longest section is on criminalizing war, and it offers an argument I haven't seen before. I think there's great value in the argument, and that it can augment others. Nonetheless, I'm going to quibble with it.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Six Years of Illegal War: Demand Accountability
We are fast approaching the end of the sixth year since the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and seven and a half in Afghanistan. There has been no accountability for the criminals who launched these wars of aggression. The current congress and president are continuing both and escalating one.
SHARE Wednesday, July 27, 2011 Stop Hoping! Start Changing!
"Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment."
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 17, 2014 Worth Fighting For?
I was not sure I would like a book called Worth Fighting For by a former soldier who walked across the United States to raise money for the Pat Tillman Foundation.
SHARE Thursday, January 28, 2016 Turning Trauma into the Abolition of War
"I was sleeping peacefully late one night when I felt someone grab my leg and drag me from my bed onto the floor. My leg was pulled so hard I heard my pajama pants rip down the middle. Looking up and seeing my father, I began to panic as he pulled my hair and told me he was going to kill me."
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 21, 2009 Take Heart and Have Courage
We've pushed long and hard to put accountability, impeachment, prosecution, and the restoration of congressional power on the American table, and they've all just landed with a thud and splatter of gravy and cranberry dressing. So, eat up, take heart, and prepare to work harder than we have over the past several frustrating years of path breaking and pressure building.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, July 21, 2014 Planning for a Day of Peace
A few years back, prior to the International Day of Peace on September 21st, a school board member here in Virginia said that he would back a resolution marking that day as long as everyone understood that in doing so he was not opposing any wars.
SHARE Thursday, July 24, 2014 This is the Israeli Military Calling: Civilizing War Has Failed
Probably the biggest news story of 1928 was the war-making nations of the world coming together on August 27th and legally outlawing war. It's a story that's not told in our history books, but it's not secret CIA history. There was no CIA. There was virtually no weapons industry as we know it. There weren't two political parties in the United States uniting in support of war after war.
SHARE Friday, February 26, 2016 South Carolina Democratic Party Means Well
The chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party called to complain that I was being unfair to him, and maybe he was right. But I'd simply urged the need to avoid any appearance of bias, and if the chairman doesn't understand that, he's in for a heck of a lot more criticism than he's ever imagined.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 16, 2006 Containing the Military Industrial Complex
We say the phrase "military industrial complex," but the lies that it hides behind permeate our thinking and dominate the politics of both major parties. Some of these lies are...
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 24, 2007 Demanding Truth from Power
It was disturbing to see so many members of Congress in both parties clamoring to get Bush's autograph on their copies of his State of the Union-not because it was such a dishonest speech that did such a disservice to this country, and not because they should have been handing him subpoenas instead. Rather, my concern arises from the habit Bush has developed following the signing of any document.
(14 comments) SHARE Monday, December 10, 2007 Wexler Urges Hearings on Cheney Impeachment
What do higher fuel-efficiency standards, expanded children's health care and improved relations with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono have in common?
According to U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, those are just a few of the benefits America can reap if Congress holds hearings on the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, September 14, 2009 Virtual JFK, Actual Johnson
"Virtual JFK" actually consists of a review of the evidence from Kennedy's actions before he died and of the situation that confronted Lyndon Johnson as president, thereby making the case that had Kennedy lived we would not have seen a full-scale war in Vietnam.
SHARE Thursday, November 19, 2015 Chicago Restricts Drones: Who's Next?
Chicago media outlets are reporting that drones have been banned from most of Chicago's skies and cannot fly over you or your property without your permission. The text of the ordinance, however, makes exceptions for police that will require eternal vigilance.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 2, 2005 In Support of Weakness on National Security
Embrace it and change the discourse. Learn to recognize when the greatest gift you could ask for is to be attacked by your discredited, despised, and indicted opponents.
SHARE Thursday, November 3, 2011 Public Pressure Is Slowly Ending Afghanistan War
Feints and baby steps in the direction of eventually ending a massive crime are not enough. Hoping to meet a distant deadline for ending a war that cannot be justified for a single day is not enough. A new misunderstanding should not be piled on top of other fictional accomplishments (the closing of Guantanamo, the complete withdrawal from Iraq, universal health coverage, etc.). But if we don't understand that we are beginning
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 19, 2012 Hearts and Mines
Russell Snyder's new book is called "Hearts and Mines: With the Marines in Al-Anbar: A Story of Psychological Warfare in Iraq." It's a beautiful book and one that may move you to outraged action, but not in the way you might expect.
SHARE Saturday, March 9, 2024 Corporate Media Can't Undertand Biden's Unpopularity
A New York Times columnist on Saturday expressed bewilderment as to Biden's unpopularity, finally concluding that it must be because borrowing money for homes or cars is expensive.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 24, 2006 Rumsfeld and Saddam: Partners in Guilt
The White House has arranged to announce two days before the November 7, 2006, elections a guilty verdict for Saddam Hussein and, no doubt, plans to finally murder him. Meanwhile an appeals process is delaying until at least five days after the elections release of photos of members of the U.S. military and its contractors raping and murdering children and adults at Abu Ghraib.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 22, 2007 War Money in a Frame
You can't put a trillion dollars in a frame and hang it on the wall, but if it weren't for another kind of frame we would never spend this kind of money on war. When we frame the debate over war money with the idea that funding war amounts to "supporting troops," the debate is constrained to range from funding the war to funding the war more and faster.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 25, 2007 Joel Wendland Means Well, Gets It Dangerously Wrong
Wendland objects that Conyers represents Detroit. But Detroit City council unanimously passed a resolution demanding that Cheney and Bush be impeached and removed from office. The resolution was introduced by Conyers' own wife. I realize that doesn't qualify her to speak on this issue, so let me hasten to add: she's black.
SHARE Thursday, May 27, 2010 Moving From Disclosure to Prevention of Corporate Politicking
The US House of Representatives may soon have the opportunity to vote on whether to move forward with a constitutional amendment to ensure that we the people, not we the corporations, control our elections.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, February 26, 2016 The 2016 Election's Obama Problem
I was looking for love in all the wrong places
Looking for love in too many faces
Searching your eyes, looking for traces
Of what I'm dreaming of --Waylon Jennings
SHARE Tuesday, December 30, 2008 Ask Obama Part 2
"Do you believe the pardon power extends to allowing a president to authorize a crime and then pardon his subordinate? Are you aware that the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture commit the United States to prosecuting violators?"
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, September 30, 2013 This Way
This article by Kathy Kelly is the foreword to David Swanson's new book, War No More: The Case for Abolition.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, January 21, 2008 National Lawyers Guild President on Impeaching Cheney
Nine out of 23 Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee favor starting impeachment hearings against Vice-President Dick Cheney. Six of the nine are co-sponsors of H.R. 799, which contains three articles of impeachment.
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 28, 2009 The Wrong Torture Question
When Americans get "ethical" these days they ponder the great moral mysteries, like "Is public health coverage fair to insurance companies?" or "If we increase the military budget but reduce one section of it, can the whole world still be safe?" or "Would you still oppose torture if it worked?"
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 23, 2008 Pardon Me, Congress?
Jerry Seib, executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal said on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR last week that he expects Bush, Cheney, and their subordinates to be prosecuted for torture. This expectation is spreading.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 26, 2007 Bush's Four Anti-Terror Successes All Fictional
President Bush claimed in his State of the Union speech to have prevented four terrorist plots. Phew! It's a good thing to know that we tossed out our Bill of Rights for some actual REASON – I mean other than turning Iraq into a training ground for terrorism.
Except that we didn't.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 8, 2007 Dems Change the Gas, Claim It's a New Car
Of course, the American public would very much like to see real investigations into the war, especially into the lies that launched it. But that's not what this list of 52 hearings is about.
SHARE Sunday, July 1, 2007 Impeachment in Kennebunkport
We are here on a day when journalists from around the world are here, not so that we might embarrass our president, but in order to make clear to the world that he embarrasses us.
SHARE Wednesday, April 28, 2010 Look Who's Sponsoring Thursday's Teach-In on the War
This Thurday's public teach-in on the war on Capitol Hill with Dennis Kucinich, Chris Hedges, Jeremy Scahill, David Swanson, and Ann Wright (which everyone should ask their representative to attend by calling them at 202-224-3121) is being sponsored by these organization that are all working for peace and all need your support and participation:
SHARE Wednesday, July 22, 2015 Panem et Presidential Elections
The U.S. presidential election is very far away. There's a measurable rise in the ocean, the construction of numerous new military bases, a decision on peace or war with Iran, a push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, intense antagonization of Russia, and more than likely another month-long bombing of Gaza between now and then.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 3, 2016 Are We Willing to Pay the Price for Peace?
Premiering around the end of March will be one of the best films I've ever seen on peace activism: Paying the Price for Peace produced by Bo Boudart and others. The film focuses on S. Brian Willson while also informing the viewer on the state of U.S. warmaking and what can be done about it.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 18, 2007 Follow Pelosi, or Follower Pelosi
Larry Everest made an interesting comment on a panel we did in Memphis last weekend. He said that if Nancy Pelosi, who claims her top priority is ending the war and who claims to support democracy, were to ask people to come to Washington, D.C., on January 27th to march against the war, probably 20 million people would come.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, March 5, 2007 Can Congress End the War?
The shortest route to ending the Iraq war (and preventing additional wars) is almost certainly through Congress. Influencing the White House directly is unimaginable, and stopping the war through the courts unlikely. Clearly, Congress is the way to go. But what specifically can Congress do?
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 11, 2007 Say It Loud: Subpoena!
Subpoena is a beautiful word. Sub means Under, as in "The subservient subject submitted along with his subordinates to the rule of law." Poena means Penalty, as in "There's an opening at the penal colony." Subpoena means a nation under laws, not unitary executives. Three and a half months later than some of us had hoped, it is finally subpoena season, not to mention spring.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, May 25, 2007 New Senate Report Is Worst Betrayal Yet
Here it is, yawn, on the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend and on the day after a war debate in Congress, all 229 pages of it, and as riveting as a phone book: the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on Bush and Cheney's war lies. This is what we've waited all these years for? Nancy Pelosi shaved her legs for THIS?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 15, 2009 An Exit Strategy That Keeps Wars Going
If George Orwell could see this he'd probably curse himself for not having thought of it. We are apparently about to see wars perpetuated by an exit strategy. How is this possible?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 10, 2007 HOUSE VOTES ON WAR TODAY
Today the House of Representatives is expected to vote on a variation of Rep. Jim McGovern's bill HR 746 to mandate the withdrawal of most American forces from Iraq. Then the House is expected to vote on a Supplemental war spending bill that gives Bush and Cheney money to continue the war and does not include even a nonbinding withdrawal date.
SHARE Saturday, December 31, 2005 Pressuring the CIA to Lie, Calling Result an Accident
Try as I might to believe that the President accidentally got it all wrong about those weapons of mass destruction and ties to 9-11, I just can't seem to square it with the fact that the White House pressured the CIA to get it wrong or else.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 2, 2006 The Cablization of Network News
On Tuesday, September 5th, at least three things will change. Congress will finish vacationing and return to its long and difficult task of destroying the world; many of us will welcome our Congress Members back to Washington with a giant protest camp called Camp Democracy; and Network News will officially go Cable with Katie Couric playing the role of Edward R. Murrow.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 8, 2006 A Bulk Rate on Printing Subpoenas?
Chairman John Conyers Jr. Chairman Henry Waxman. Those titles will prove to be the most important outcome of yesterday's elections, even if the Dems get the Senate too.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 29, 2007 Kucinich: Congress Must Tell the President No to Additional War Funding
"We do not have to fund the war. The Democratic leadership must tell the President NO to any additional funding. No legislation is required. No vote is required. We have the money to bring the troops home. It does not require a vote. The only thing required is honesty, integrity and a willingness to end the war," Kucinich said.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2010 CA Dem Party: What Is It Good for?
I've followed the struggles of progressives within the California Democratic Party from the opposite coast and admired their achievements but wondered about their limitations.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, April 22, 2013 Time for a Department of Peace
I'm honored to have accepted the position of Secretary of Peace in the newly formed Green Shadow Cabinet.
SHARE Friday, October 14, 2005 Following Cindy's Example, Brits to Camp Out at Blair's Place
Rose Gentle's son Gordon died in a roadside bombing in Basra on 28th June 2004 - Susan Smith's son Philip was killed in a roadside bombing in Al Amarah on 16th July this year.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 28, 2007 Testimony for Senate Impeachment Hearing
FOR THE WASHINGTON STATE SENATE HEARING CALLING FOR THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES TO INVESTIGATE AND CONSIDER HEARINGS ON EVIDENCE THAT COULD LEAD TO THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH AND VICE-PRESIDENT RICHARD B. CHENEY
SHARE Monday, March 7, 2011 Another Life Focuses This One
Brilliant and humane playwright Karen Malpede has produced another play that grabs this country by the lapels, shakes it, caresses its cheek, and kicks its ass. The play is called "Another Life" and the life it leaves me thinking about is the life of our dreams.
SHARE Thursday, June 7, 2007 Six Congress Members for Impeachment
Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has joined Congress Members Yvette Clarke, Jan Schakowsky, William Lacy Clay, Albert Wynn, and Dennis Kucinich in cosponsoring Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.
SHARE Monday, January 11, 2010 Bring Back the Signing Statement
Having denounced for years the presidential practice of altering laws with signing statements, I now want the practice restored, because the current president has created something even worse.
SHARE Friday, January 25, 2013 A New Model Drone Resolution
The federal government has authorized the flight of 30,000 drones, and the use of drones up to 400 feet by police departments, at least 300 of which already have surveillance drones in operation.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 13, 2023 How Can We Still Pretend to Be for Peace? Let Me Count the Ways
I'm reminded of a school board member here in Virginia who wanted to approve recognizing the International Day of Peace as long as it could be made clear that he wasn't against any wars.
SHARE Tuesday, December 20, 2005 Conyers Introduces Censure and Select Committee
CONYERS INTRODUCES BILL TO CREATE A SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE POSSIBLE CRIMES AND MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT
SHARE Tuesday, November 27, 2012 Neither Grand, Nor a Bargain
We're supposed to be against a bargain, but only against one of the two partners to the bargain. Any bets on how well that'll work?
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 25, 2008 Senator Byrd Wants to End the Occupation: Ask Him to Filibuster the Funding
Below is what Senator Robert Byrd (D., West Virginia) has to say about ending the occupation. Please call him 202 224-3954 and ask him to show he is serious by announcing his intention to filibuster the funding.
SHARE Saturday, January 5, 2008 Florida ACLU for Impeachment
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida has followed the lead of the ACLU of Central Florida, the ACLU of Monroe County Florida, and the ACLU of the Treasure Coast (Florida), all of which followed the lead of the ACLU of Southern California in backing impeachment and calling for the National ACLU to do the same.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, December 5, 2008 Proposal for United for Peace and Justice
I think it is imperative that we deter future wars, as well as defunding them, that we reestablish the rule of law in addition to simply requesting that certain laws be voluntarily obeyed for the moment. We can do this by prosecuting high officials who are guilty of war crimes, including the supreme crime of aggressive war. We can also shift power away from the Pentagon and the White House.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 25, 2007 Observing Our Government Through Blackwater
Jeremy Scahill, author of a terrific book on the Blackwater mercenary army, spoke in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Tuesday to a packed hall. He took questions at the end, and one man asked something to the effect of "Why does the government want to privatize the military? We taxpayers have been paying for the Army."
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, September 23, 2013 A Tale of Two Congress Members
In 2010 in Virginia's Fifth Congressional District, many people who prioritize peace over war probably voted for Democrat Tom Perriello over Republican Robert Hurt. I know many who did just that.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, July 28, 2014 If We Dislike War Like We Dislike Cancer
War and cancer are among our leading causes of human death around the world. They can't be strictly separated and compared since war is a major cause of cancer, as is war preparation.
SHARE Tuesday, July 26, 2005 How to Lobby Congress With a Hammer
The Case Against Hauling 44 Thousand Metric Tons of Nuclear Waste Through 45 States and Storing it Above Ground on Native American Land
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, June 18, 2007 We've Started Taking Back America
The fifth annual Take Back America Conference began this morning with a press conference at which Bob Borosage of Campaign for America's Future, Karen Ackerman of the AFL-CIO, Eli Pariser of MoveOn, Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood, Brad Woodhouse of Americans United for Change, and Jerome Ringo of Apollo Project explained how we're going to take back America – or rather the fact that they believe we already have.
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 10, 2008 Call Conyers Monday and Tuesday
On Thursday, Chairman John Conyers' House Judiciary Committee held a hearing at which Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that he would not investigate torture or warrantless spying, he would not enforce contempt citations, and he would treat Justice Department opinions as providing immunity for crimes.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 9, 2009 Why Would Anyone Oppose Torture?
Someone recently asked if I could please explain to him why anybody would oppose torture. After all, we defend killing in wars, so why not defend torture? And wouldn't I torture to save my kidnapped child?
SHARE Friday, July 20, 2012 Peace Needs a Chance
Abdulhai said, "I don't want to take revenge. It doesn't solve the problem." Ali added, "We Afghans say that "Blood cannot wash away blood.'"
SHARE Thursday, January 31, 2008 Your Vote Will Be Thoughtful, But Will It Be Counted?
By the time November 2008 rolls around, you will have endured over two years of breathless horse-race election coverage. (I, for one, am going to spend the next few days pushing Obama over Clinton, and then tune back in on Halloween to decide whether to vote for Obama, Nader, or McKinney. There are too many important things to work on in between.) But the big question (and one of the important things to work on) is this:
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 22, 2009 Blocking Escalation of War Not Good Enough
Why is it that every time we elect "peace" candidates we defund the peace movement, stop calling for an end to wars, and limit our demands exclusively to opposing war escalations?
SHARE Friday, September 27, 2013 We Need a Dandelion Insurrection
It's a novel about overcoming abuses that now exist or easily might in the next few years.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, January 28, 2013 A Blowback Hurricane
Most violence we face we've provoked. Those confronting us with violence are exactly as wrong as if we hadn't provoked them. But we are not as innocent as we like to imagine.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 14, 2007 How Congress Will End the Occupation
Public pressure on Congress to end the occupation of Iraq resulted in a fundamental breakthrough on July 19th when 70 congress members sent a letter to the president.
SHARE Thursday, July 30, 2015 Iran Deal Prevents Naked Muslim Ray Gun
Nukes get all the attention, but the fact is that intense inspections of Iranian facilities will also prevent Iran from developing a ray gun that causes your clothes to vanish and your brain to convert to Islam.
SHARE Sunday, March 3, 2024 Talking Like the CIA Is Bad for You
I want to add a friendly amendment to efforts to reduce the use of Pentagon language. I think CIA language is a problem as well. I think it's at least as present as war language in Hollywood productions, and in massive child-focused cultural efforts like the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.
SHARE Monday, February 6, 2006 Iran and Venezuela Plan War on Israel
Ahmadinejad of Iran told President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, "Iran is thinking of flying reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Israel...
SHARE Wednesday, November 22, 2006 The Melbourne Minutes: New Downing Street Memos from Down Under
On February 27, 2002 – just five months after 15 Saudis, 2 Lebanese, and 2 Yemenis flew airplanes into U.S. buildings – Trevor Flugge, who was then chairman of AWB, the Australian Wheat Board, a private corporation, told AWB's board that John Dauth, who was then Australia's ambassador to the United Nations, had revealed to Flugge the plans of the U.S. and Australian governments for war on Iraq.
SHARE Tuesday, June 19, 2007 Hip Hop Comes to Take Back America Conference
"Hip Hop Artists and Activists: Politically Empowering a Culture of Resistance" was the name of a panel at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Cherryl Aldave from National Hip Hop Political Convention MC'd.
SHARE Thursday, March 13, 2008 The Day After the Bombing of Iran
Imagine yourself sitting down transfixed and watching video footage of U.S. bombs hitting Iran. You see children ripped limb from limb, mothers screaming and wailing, people panicked, tortured, traumatized, and killed. Imagine asking yourself at that point: What was I doing these past many months that I thought was more important than preventing this?
SHARE Thursday, December 3, 2009 News from the Counting House
In every village of the kingdom the heralds would cry out the news. And always it would be the same news from every herald who wore the purple sash. But other heralds would cry out different news, crazy news, news that wasn't news at all.
SHARE Monday, January 7, 2008 Rethinking Labor Union Endorsements
Labor unions declined to send a message on their issues or to move other candidates to their positions by backing Kucinich, but it has now become clear that they could have backed Kucinich, and he could have failed just as badly, and labor would have accomplished no less (possibly more) than it accomplished by lining up behind Clinton, Edwards, and Dodd, all of whom have lost to Obama.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 13, 2013 A Built-In Cure for War
Erin Niemela's recent proposal that we amend the Constitution to ban war is provocative and persuasive. Count me in. But I have a related idea that I think should be tried first.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 6, 2006 Cindy Sheehan to Move Camp to DC
Cindy Sheehan and activists in the growing peace movement plan to establish Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, again this August 16 to September 2. They then plan to move the camp to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., beginning September 8.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 11, 2007 Father's Day, Peace, and Masculinity
The most creative, energetic, and effective peace activists in the United States right now are women organized explicitly as "CODE PINK: Women for Peace." While CODE PINK welcomes the participation of men (and when I'm in DC I stay at the CODE PINK house), the group is organized around the idea that women have a special role to play in working for peace. Why don't we have a group of Men for Peace?
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Rep. Conyers' Latest Excuses
Well, my response is that we have several things to do in -- I begin this part of our conversation by indicating that I have nothing but the highest regard for Cindy Sheehan. But the question of how we orchestrate moving a congressional schedule forward of accomplishments -- we're pretty proud of what we've done in eight months...
SHARE Friday, June 5, 2009 Stop the War Supplemental
The House is about to vote on another supplemental spending bill for continued and escalated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We're not accustomed to winning in our efforts to block war money, but the Democratic leadership has delayed the vote out of concern that we will.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 21, 2013 Tour de Peace
Between April 4 and July 3, the entire country (and the other 96% of humanity too) is invited to join in a bicycle ride from California to Washington, D.C. You can join as a bicycler or as a sponsor.
SHARE Sunday, July 21, 2013 Veterans For Peace to Hold 28th National Convention
Veterans For Peace, a leading antiwar organization with chapters in every U.S. state and several other countries, will hold its 28th national convention in Madison, Wisconsin, August 7-11, 2013, at the Concourse Hotel at 1 Dayton Street.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 29, 2005 Writing in an Age of Terror
Obviously, if this really were an age of terror, an age in which we were all terrorized, there would be no writing.
SHARE Thursday, January 12, 2006 War Lies and Journalistic Constipation
So, what would we have to think if we were to discover that the New York Times has been sitting on a story about who it was that Dearlove met with – and that it was not "national security aides"?
SHARE Tuesday, March 4, 2008 You Don't Need a Weatherman
Many of us fear, I think, that it is not our place as Americans to ask Iraqis to put their lives at risk through nonviolence.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 21, 2009 If Media Were Any Good
A week ago, I published a report on 1,200 photos of U.S. torture that I have examined but the public at large has not seen. I talked about the photos on a few progressive radio shows. I received calls from some advocacy groups that have been trying for years to get hold of these photos. But I received not one single inquiry from the corporate media. Even most good blogs ignored this story despite a handful of prominent blogs.
SHARE Saturday, February 23, 2013 Witnesses at a Drone Hearing
This coming Wednesday the House Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearing on "Drones and the War On Terror: When Can the U.S. Target Alleged American Terrorists Overseas?"
SHARE Thursday, February 22, 2007 IRAN NUMBERS
What is 99,289?
That's the number of people who have signed a petition opposing an attack on Iran.
What is 711?
No, it's not a convenience store.
Oh, you didn't think that? See, you're quicker than our unitary executive!
SHARE Wednesday, March 15, 2006 Impeachment and Connecticut
Read the first line of this front page article from today's Hartford Courant and then ask Congressman Larson to cosponsor H Res 635:
Phone: (860) 278-8888 | Fax: (860) 278-2111
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 18, 2007 Dodd Ends Spying, No Senator Will Do Same for War
Senator Chris Dodd on Thursday single-handedly blocked a bill to legalize unconstitutional spying and immunize criminals who have engaged in it. But by doing so, Dodd may have made the biggest blunder Washington has seen in many months. He advertised the fact that a single senator with nerve has the power to block a bill, including – of course – every bill to further fund the occupation of Iraq.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, February 10, 2014 Is a Policy a Law? Is Murder Murder?
Notice those words: "legally" and "policy." No longer does U.S. media make a distinction between the two.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, September 24, 2007 Peace and Hillary Clinton
This past Sunday, crime thriller author John Grisham hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in my town. I talked with a lot of the people attending. Some said they supported Clinton because they wanted to keep troops in Iraq. But most were there because they opposed Bush and Cheney's policies on Iraq. Who was confused, and who was not? Or could they both be right?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 16, 2009 Personal Torture Laws: Your Tax Dollars at Work
On August 1, 2002, then-Assistant Attorney General of the United States Jay Bybee sent an 18-page official memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel to the Acting General Counsel of the CIA John Rizzo. Such memos are treated as laws within our government, not opinions, not theories, not briefings, but laws.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 12, 2012 Even Star Spangled War Is Hell
The revolution had ended three decades before 1812, and the choice to launch a new war was made by the U.S. government in Washington, D.C.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, August 6, 2012 Beyond the Two-State Solution
And he rightly sees the first step as recovering honesty with regards to not-so-distant history.
SHARE Tuesday, September 3, 2013 Congressional Progressive/Pentagon Caucus
The CPC, on the question of a new war on Syria, is choosing to do nothing at all. In fact, one of its two co-chairs is actively promoting war.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 29, 2007 BREAKING NEWS: Cheney Denies Being Human
"I am not human," Vice President Dick Cheney said twice during a 10-minute statement today following news that...
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 6, 2008 On Protest and Patriotism
and finding a flag big enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 11, 2007 Step it Up for Peace and Planet
The Cheney energy meeting, the Iraq Study Group, the Supplemental spending bill, the choice of which buildings to defend after Shock and Awe, Iraq's proposed new hydrocarbon law, the threat of an attack on Iran, and the sudden recognition of reality that comes from throwing away your television, all suggest that we've just wasted four years, hundreds of thousands of lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars, for oil.
SHARE Sunday, August 26, 2007 Made Love, Got War
"Made Love, Got War" is the title of Norman Solomon's latest book, an autobiographical account of the peace and disarmament movements in the United States over the past half century. Better than his other books, I think, this one achieves the level of artistic composition found in Solomon's brilliant and frequent columns on the media, war, and peace. But the value of "Made Love, Not War" lies in the lessons it provides...
SHARE Wednesday, November 7, 2007 Pelosi Senza Cuore
"Look," Pelosi said, "I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things-Buddhas? I don't know what they were-couches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front sidewalk. If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have..
SHARE Thursday, June 26, 2008 War Inc Blows
I don't mean that in a good way.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 4, 2008 Pardon Whom?
The ACLU sent out an Email on December 4th joining a chorus of voices in declaring that Bush has the power to pardon crimes he authorized but shouldn't use it.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 5, 2012 Backward Ho!
A few thoughts in praise of backwardness.
SHARE Sunday, November 5, 2006 Bush Chain Gang Campaigns for George Allen
Bush, Cheney, Rummy, and Condi are taking time out from cleaning our nation's highways and putting some of their chain gang service into campaigning to reelect Senator George Allen.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 23, 2007 Of Congressional Surrenders
Dick Cheney and Jim Wright Saved Reagan: What Can Cheney and Nancy Pelosi Do for Bush?
SHARE Friday, June 24, 2011 Freedom Riding to Gaza
Fifty years ago, freedom riders traveled by bus into the U.S. South. Now American freedom riders are joining their allies from around the world on a flotilla bound for Gaza. The U.S. ship is called The Audacity of Hope.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 6, 2007 Constitution, Flag, and Leaving Iraq
Remarks on October 6, 2007, at a rally in Richmond, Va., celebrating the U.S. Constitution and flag.
SHARE Thursday, May 2, 2019 Infotainment Is Taking Over
Entertainment misinforms. Humans cannot possibly survive into a distant future that includes light-speed travel while simultaneously behaving like feral animals. Torture doesn't work. Politicians don't resemble Martin Sheen. The poor little United States is not threatened by irrational evil empires. Violence won't save us from masked storm troopers, evil wizards, or whomever Boeing and Lockheed Martin armed last year.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 13, 2006 How to Talk About Iran
John Aravosis suggests some talking points on Iran, but I'd like to suggest some changes.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 19, 2007 13 State Democratic Parties Demand Impeachment
Thirteen state Democratic parties have now passed resolutions demanding impeachment, nine of them since Nancy Pelosi ordered the Democratic Party away from impeachment.
SHARE Tuesday, July 31, 2007 People's Peace Delegation to Iran Reports Back
On Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C., a five-member group of Americans reported on their just-completed 12-day trip through Iran. As with other delegations of this sort, they reported on a country that bears very little resemblance to the horrifying axis-of-evil member we hear about on U.S. television.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 28, 2009 Why Dems Liked Mukasey Better Than Holder
Democrats in Congress respected former Attorney General Michael Mukasey beyond any measure he appeared to have earned, and to the extent of fully expecting him to perform his duties even in the most difficult circumstances. In contrast, the same Congress members do not believe Attorney General Eric Holder is up to the job.
SHARE Friday, June 4, 2010 Prophecies Are for Violating
Multiple wars explode into the characters lives from the past, present, and future.
SHARE Friday, September 26, 2008 Foreign Policy Debate All About Wars
There was only one foreign policy asked about in Friday night's foreign policy debate: war and potential wars.
SHARE Monday, January 16, 2006 Woolsey's Way to Peace
The largest cut by far that most Americans would make in federal discretionary spending is in the military budget.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 22, 2007 A Measure of Morality in Congress
If you could secretly tell a magic genie "Yes" and receive a million dollars but cause the deaths of a million people you've never met in China, would you say No? This is no longer just a philosophical brain teaser.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 29, 2008 State of the Union Came With a Signing Statement
On the day of the State of the Union, apparently hoping nobody would notice, President George W. Bush posted a statement on the White House website announcing his intention to violate major sections of the Defense Authorization bill that he just signed into law.
(3 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 18, 2008 What Would We Do Without Bush?
Have you ever met one of those remaining 15 or 20 percent of Americans who have the kool-aid IV in their arms, and they ask you "Well, what would you DO then?"
SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2016 10 Reasons Why Ending the Draft Helps End War
A new bill in Congress would abolish the draft, and a petition in support of it has gained a good deal of traction. But a significant contingent among those who sincerely want peace vehemently opposes ending the draft, and in fact favors drafting young people into war starting tomorrow. Since coming out as a supporter of the new legislation, I've encountered far more support than opposition. But the opposition has been intense
SHARE Tuesday, April 16, 2019 Testimony for the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service
I recommend that we actually find common ground to what little extent it exists with those who say that we should treasure women so much that we would never send them off to kill or die. Then we should work to expand that admirable outlook to include men too. Can't we treasure men that much?
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, October 13, 2006 A Blue District Gone Red, Coming Back
From a nearer angle, the contest between Goode and Weed, in which Goode's lead is dwindling rapidly, is one between a radical right winger and a progressive with a vision for enlightened change.
SHARE Tuesday, October 17, 2006 Transcript of Trupiano Interview
No, I'll fight like hell to make sure every vote is counted, even if it ends up going against me; truly the process is about November 7, that's what this is all about, that one day, let's make it count, but let's make sure the votes count, and I'm with you 100% on that one.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 18, 2007 Momentum Building for Cheney Impeachment
In the space of a few days, nearly 100,000 people have already signed onto a call by Congressman Robert Wexler to begin impeachment hearings for Dick Cheney.
SHARE Tuesday, October 29, 2013 Doughboys and Dumb Things Humans Have Done
This November 11th at 11 a.m. will mark 95 years since World War I ended. Next July 28th will mark 100 years since it started.
SHARE Sunday, May 5, 2019 Militarism Mapped 2019
World BEYOND War has just released an updated 2019 mapping of militarism in the world.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, March 3, 2008 Nixon, Cheney, and Le Deluge
Congressman Dennis Kucinich's resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney now has more cosponsors signed onto it than any resolution to impeach President Richard Nixon ever had. But separate resolutions to impeach Nixon, some with a handful of cosponsors, many with no cosponsors at all, were filed by the dozens. Today, Kucinich's resolution stands alone.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, November 2, 2009 Between Hate Speech and Adoration
Room needs to be created for other types of speech. We must be able to criticize and even legally prevent incitement of political violence, while at the same time examining what has made some people susceptible to that kind of talk, and while simultaneously speaking honestly about the failings of the people being targeted.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 27, 2011 How Would You Spend the Federal Budget?
Directions: Enter a percentage of the budget that you would spend on each of these six broad categories.
(34 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 10, 2008 Impeachment Is Beginning
This is the part where justice rolls down like a mighty stream.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 18, 2009 Honestly, Judge, I Did It But Let's Look Forward
Now here's a horrendously bad piece of thinking from a usually terrific website that occasionally lets loyalty to a political party trump common sense. Cynthia Boaz, who has written much better stuff, writes:
SHARE Monday, September 9, 2013 Kerry Couldn't Sell a Used Car
Kerry is trying to sell the same used car to people who want an ambulance and other people who want a tank.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 7, 2008 Impeachment on New Hampshire Table
On Sunday evening, two days before the New Hampshire Primaries, with a presidential candidate spouting vacuous dreamy rhetoric behind every snow bank, the good people of New Hampshire took the time to hold two forums on the question of how we can remove the current president and vice president BEFORE January 2009.
SHARE Tuesday, June 11, 2013 Over 30,000 Sign Thank-You Note to Edward Snowden
Already over 30,000 people have signed a thank-you note to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden at SupportEdwardSnowden.org -- a website set up by RootsAction.org.
SHARE Tuesday, April 30, 2019 Charlottesville Is Keeping Trump's Favorite Statues
Give a judge a couple of years and he'll eventually blurt out that the sky is blue.
That's now happened in Charlottesville, where a court has finally concluded that the statues of Lee and Jackson in their war uniforms on their war horses are war monuments.
SHARE Thursday, September 21, 2006 Nuclear Winter, Global Warming, or Impeachment
We are sending missiles to Iran on a ship departing my home state of Virginia next week, and the water the ship will be passing through is warmer than it used to be, and there's more of it.
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 27, 2007 Hate Us for Our WHAT?
Of course we've long since established that they do not hate us for the reasons they say they hate us.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, February 15, 2008 Crucial Week for Impeachment
Something very important happened in Congress on Thursday. After 7 years of cowering in fear of every dictatorial demand from Bush and Cheney, House Democrats finally rose up and said NO.
SHARE Thursday, January 7, 2016 Cities of the World, Unite Against Nations' Wars
What if the very worst result of George W. Bush's war lies is that people stop taking seriously the danger of actual nuclear weapons actually falling into the hands of actual lunatics? Arguably the very worst result of Woodrow Wilson's lies about German atrocities in World War I was excessive skepticism about reports of Nazi atrocities leading up to and during World War II.
SHARE Thursday, May 6, 2010 Dear Congressman Obey, Don't Leave Us the Bill
In recent years you've expressed your opposition to war spending. I'd like to encourage you to cap off your congressional career by actually refusing to provide the funding for the current escalation in Afghanistan, and by simultaneously introducing a bill to spend $33 billion on green energy jobs, including for former soldiers.
SHARE Tuesday, November 6, 2007 Peace and Impeachment in Los Angeles
This past Friday night and Saturday, Ann Wright and I spoke at four events in the Los Angeles area on the topics of peace and impeachment.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 21, 2008 Clinton Needs 181% of Remaining Delegates
Pledged delegates are awarded by voters and caucus goers. Super-delegates are antidemocratic Party control freaks who have no business deciding anything. Of pledged delegates, now that Oregon and Kentucky have had their say, Senator Obama has 1,648 and Senator Clinton 1,493. There are 86 pledged delegates remaining to be awarded in Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota. This means that Clinton can still pull it out if...
SHARE Wednesday, December 19, 2007 March 2008 Demonstration and Resistance
We call on people from throughout the United States, in solidarity with those planning similar events around the world, to come together in massive numbers on March 15th and 19th, 2008, to demand an immediate end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
SHARE Thursday, December 20, 2007 Rep. Weiner Joins Call for Cheney Impeachment Hearings
On Thursday, Congressman Anthony Weiner told Bob Fertik of Democrats.com that he would sign onto Congressman Robert Wexler's letter to Chairman John Conyers urging the commencement of impeachment hearings for Dick Cheney. Wexler, together with Congress Members Luis Gutierrez and Tammy Baldwin, hopes to have a majority of Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee sign the letter.
(12 comments) SHARE Friday, February 29, 2008 Zogby Poll a Disappointment
The latest poll on impeachment comissioned from Zogby by OpEdNews is quite a disappointment. The numbers are so low as to be, to my mind, not credible. But we paid for it, they did it, and there's no undoing it.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 14, 2009 Funding Wars Is Good for Babies and Your Garden
The executive director of something called the National Security Network, named Heather Hurlburt, offers -- I kid you not, and that's really her name, so try not to hurl -- Six Reasons to Love the Supplemental and Celebrate Progressives in Government.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Single-Payer Healthcare Gets a Vote
Congressman Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) has introduced an amendment in the House Energy and Commerce Committee that would replace the convoluted please- the- public- and- the- insurance- companies- at- the- same- time healthcare bill with the single-payer plan found in HR 676 and backed by 86 members of Congress.
SHARE Tuesday, April 4, 2006 Not One More Death
The book is composed of short essays by Brian Eno, John Le Carre, Harold Pinter, Richard Dawkins, Haifa Zangana, and Michael Faber. It's as good a statement as I've seen of why this war is cruel and destructive and why we must devote our energies to ending it as soon as possible.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 14, 2007 Another Clinton Campaign Fraud
It sounds silly, but for a long time it just didn't occur to me what the implications would be. Thus spake a college student who agreed to ask Senator Clinton a planted question. And thus, alas, must I speak as well.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 20, 2009 Priorities
What are they?
SHARE Monday, October 29, 2007 Jonesborough Justice
Of the eleven major peace rallies organized around the country by United for Peace and Justice last Saturday the smallest and most unusual took place in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Jonesborough is a town of about 4,000 people in the northeast corner of Tennessee, within a couple of dozen miles of both Virginia and North Carolina. The people of Jonesborough can imagine the number of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq by imagining
SHARE Friday, July 31, 2009 PDA Spends Fifth Birthday on Healthcare Not Warfare
Progressive Democrats of America has turned five. I've written before about what PDA has accomplished. On Thursday night it celebrated the five-year mark with a party at the end of a long day of rallying, lobbying, and strategizing on Capitol Hill.
SHARE Thursday, March 7, 2024 The Soundbyte That Abolishes War
It's been a long and ciruitous search to find the handful of words that can end all warfare on Earth.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, May 1, 2006 Impeach Cheney First
We should impeach Vice President Dick Cheney first, and President George Bush immediately thereafter.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 23, 2013 Copperhead
Copperhead was a name for Northern Democrats opposed to the Civil War. Now it's also the name of a remarkable new film: CopperheadTheMovie.com. This is not the first film about a family opposed to the Civil War. Many will probably recall the 1965 film Shenandoah starring Jimmy Stewart. But Copperhead is the one to see.
SHARE Friday, March 2, 2012 Why I've Refused to Endorse the Protests of Either the RNC or the DNC
Don't get me wrong. I want the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in Tampa and Charlotte protested, denounced, shamed, nonviolently occupied, and ideally prevented from occurring, at least until they credibly support peace, justice, and democracy -- or pigs fly, whichever comes first.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, August 6, 2007 Senator Dodd Thinks You're Stupid
Even though 54% of Americans favor impeaching Cheney, and 40% oppose, Dodd opposes impeachment because, he says, he bases his actions on what the average American thinks, and...
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, September 7, 2007 Betray Us Report
In the end, General David Petraeus will appear in Congress on Monday, ask each Congress Member to turn and kneel, and put a bullet in the back of each of their heads. At first, that sounds outlandish. But let's review.
SHARE Thursday, November 12, 2009 Come Together Right Now
If you have an interest in grassroots organizing, international alliance building, the peace movement, the labor movement, the conversion of the U.S. economy from weapons to human needs, the preservation of life on earth (come on, admit it), the weaponization of space, or the autobiographical insights of smart and determined people, then I cannot more strongly recommend that you get a copy of "Come Together Right Now"
SHARE Thursday, March 8, 2012 Top 10 Genius Reasons to Keep Troops in Afghanistan
1. When you're setting a record for the longest modern war, cutting it short just increases the chances of somebody breaking your record some day.
SHARE Thursday, July 27, 2006 Where Were You When They Took Your Rights Away?
Can you name the one country on earth where the government can steal elections, strip away basic rights, spy on citizens, and launch wars based on lies, but where the people do not take over the nation's capital in protest?
SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2010 Pre-Partisan America, 1789-1801
I'm not a big fan of post-partisan America, a notion that seems to amount to running the government through two political parties but taking care that one of them not perform in any significant way better than the other one. But I am a fan of the idea, which nobody ever seems to consider, of actually disempowering parties.
SHARE Friday, February 23, 2007 Why Congress Must Reauthorize the Use of the Constitution
It is at least conceivable that Congressman Jack Murtha and company are backing off on requiring that Bush and Cheney send only prepared, equipped, and rested men and women to the slaughter for more than one reason. One reason, of course, is that Fox News has called Murtha and company traitors. But there could be a second reason. Someone somewhere may just have pointed out that Congress has enacted these limitations before.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 4, 2006 Lobbying Hitler's Legislature for Peace
...many citizens (myself included) no longer believe Congress has the power to affect anything other than by removing Bush and Cheney from office.
SHARE Thursday, November 8, 2007 Mukasey and Digby Give Postmodernism a Bad Name
I've often seen Bush compared to a child and Cheney to a monster, which I think is incredibly unfair to children and monsters. The following is a commentary on a blog posting by Digby that compares the Bush-Cheney crime gang to postmodernists and "relativists", which I think is entirely unfair to postmodernists and "relativists". In fact, I think the Bush-Cheney gang's defense of cruel and criminal actions fits seamlessly with
SHARE Thursday, July 17, 2008 AP's Problem Is Not What It Thinks
There's been a lot of public discussion of late of the Associated Press's Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier's changes in style rules. Out with "just the facts," in with opinion and perspective. Or so the story goes. The changes that are afoot at the AP appear to be part of a broader trend, influenced - in part - by the internet, the medium itself and the competition from bloggers.
SHARE Saturday, August 12, 2006 Veterans for Impeachment
"Your attention please. Due to heightened security, please permit suspension of the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and peace on earth. Your attention please...."
SHARE Monday, February 27, 2006 About That Anthrax
So, the word Anthrax is back in the news, but not because Saddam Hussein's vast stockpiles have been found, not because Bush has apologized for inventing those vast stockpiles, not because Forest Whitaker has agreed to play Colin Powell in "The Sting II: Hustling the United Nations" ...
SHARE Monday, September 11, 2006 Dedicating September 11th to Bush
On September 11th we must recognize that one of the ways in which we make ourselves comfortable with our failure to act against this criminal government is by fantasizing about this government possessing superhuman powers...
SHARE Thursday, January 26, 2006 Call Media on Lies
Don't let lies by the media go unchallenged. Demand a correction! Especially when the topic is impeachment.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 12, 2008 Iraq Occupation Worse Than Ever
Two weeks ago an article in the Cville Weekly by Josh Levy ( http://tinyurl.com/3ckznf ) told us that the "surge" was going to win the "war" in Iraq. "Victory has not yet arrived," he cautioned, "and it may be years before we can mark its arrival with confidence, but we can reasonably hope to see it."
SHARE Wednesday, January 4, 2006 What the Republicans Really Do Not Want
What campaign was the RNC spokeswoman referring to? We can be sure it is something the RNC really really does not want to see succeed.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Dear Chief Prosecutor
An Open Letter to Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 27, 2010 Tangled Up in Yoo
One victim standin' at the side of his cell
Blood dripping on his shoes
Admitted Iraq had WMDs
Lord knows that made the news but was it true,
Tangled up in Yoo.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 5, 2006 Let's Stay in Iraq Until it's Peaceful or We're Sane, Whichever Comes First
Have you ever heard someone try to argue that the Iraq War was a mistake but that now the proper course is to continue the mistake a bit longer or to carefully end it in a long and complicated way that could take months or years? Have you ever wondered how such a position, if examined in detail, could possibly make any sense?
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, May 28, 2007 The Holy Occupation of Iraq
But why would religions be trying to recruit people who, like me, want the United States to get out of Iraq? I thought about it for a minute before I realized what the answer was: they've already got their claws in virtually every American who supports the Iraqi Occupation. Their target rich environment is the peace movement.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, February 22, 2008 Video: David Earnhardt on Stolen Elections
On Thursday, February 21st, David Earnhardt, the writer, director, and producer of the best film yet released on election fraud, "Uncounted," showed the film and spoke about it in Charlottesville, Va.
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 14, 2007 No Mo Money for War
The Democrats in Congress are doing less to oppose the war now that they have the majority than they did in the minority. While in the minority, Democrats in a sizable and growing number voted against funding more war. While in the minority, Democrats pushed hard for Resolutions of Inquiry into the lies that launched the war. While in the minority, Democrats in significant numbers signed onto a bill to...
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 3, 2013 Wartime U.S. Travelogue
In Washington Dulles airport I noticed a large advertisement. I'd seen it before and not paid attention. (No doubt that's why they saturate public space with the things.) It showed a woman's face with the words: "A car crash in California almost took her leg. A bomb blast in Iraq helped save it."
SHARE Wednesday, March 6, 2024 Telling the Truth About Peace
Some acts of truth-telling about war and peace are easy, and some involve extreme risk. Some are simple, and some require great strategic planning. Some involve facts, some analysis, and some storytelling.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 9, 2007 Puzzling Out Pelosi
President Bush vetoed a war spending bill because it included a deadline for ending the war, albeit a non-binding one. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has proposed to hold a vote on Thursday on a new bill that will not include even a nonbinding "timeline." The media and even activist groups have almost immediately and almost unanimously described this as standing tough and refusing to give in to Bush.
SHARE Sunday, July 13, 2014 A Finger in My Soup
I'd heard of such horror stories and assumed they were mostly fictional or concocted as the bases for lawsuits, and then I was actually served a bowl of soup that had a finger in it.
SHARE Sunday, January 31, 2016 It's Hard Not to Be Sexist in Iowa
No, the cornfields are not full of dumb blondes (except when Fox News shows up), but it truly is hard not to be sexist in Iowa.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 4, 2008 Rep. Pete Stark Signs onto Cheney Articles of Impeachment
This makes 26 cosponsors, or 27 total members including the orginal sponsor of H Res 333, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who won his reelection primary today.
SHARE Thursday, December 22, 2005 Fraud taints antigay measure
ON TUESDAY, the secretary of the Commonwealth certified signatures for a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage that will begin a process to place the question on the 2008 ballot.
SHARE Friday, October 27, 2006 Republicans for Slave Labor
What if there were Republicans in Congress who supported forced abortions and prostitution and slave labor? And what if there were progressive Democrats running against them? Meet Republican Congress Members John Doolittle and Richard Pombo and their challengers in California's 4th and 11th districts.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 14, 2007 Hillary for Emperor
I've decided to drop my advocacy for the impeachment of Cheney or Bush and focus on something more realistic: making Senator Hillary Clinton our next emperor. After all, when the candidate is someone good, you should want them to have as much power as possible. Bear with me a minute, and I think you may agree.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 19, 2008 Feingold Sets Up Republicans to Win Two More Filibusters
Senator Russ Feingold (D., Wisc.) is preparing to give the Republicans in the Senate two more opportunities next week to grandstand and filibuster in favor of the occupation of Iraq. They will, of course, do so; and they will, of course, win.
SHARE Friday, August 10, 2007 A Word from Congressman Nadler's Predecessor
As far as I know, nobody has heard lately from former Congressman Don Edwards. He was the chair of the subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights. Congressman Jerrold Nadler is the current chair of the new version of that subcommittee. And it is to that subcommittee that the bills proposing the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been sent.
SHARE Tuesday, June 30, 2009 Why Are Two Top Torture Lawyers Working for Obama?
John Yoo and Jay Bybee wrote the worst of these memos. But the memos take the form of responses to inquiries from a guy named John Rizzo. Yes, Mr. Rizzo, you may slam that guy against a wall. No, Mr. Rizzo, you may not drown that one unless you have a doctor present. And so on.
SHARE Tuesday, March 22, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Paul Engler on THIS IS AN UPRISING
Paul Engler is founding director of the Center for the Working Poor and one of the founders of Momentum Training. He is co-author of the new book: This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century.
SHARE Monday, September 26, 2005 David Swanson: Civil Resistance at the White House
I got to the White House around noon and found hundreds of people gathered awaiting the arrival of marchers who planned to get themselves arrested protesting the war.
SHARE Tuesday, October 25, 2005 Why I'm Getting Arrested at the White House Today
The first reason I'm going to lie down, refuse to move, and wait to be arrested outside the White House today is my belief that massive civil disobedience is needed if we are going to end the war and forestall the next war.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 30, 2013 Look Not Unto the Morrow
Robert Fantina, the author of a tragically nonfictional survey of the lives of soldiers in all past U.S. wars, has now published a devastatingly fictional account of the war that the Vietnamese call the American War.
SHARE Tuesday, July 3, 2007 Commuting Scooter
George Mason (1725-1792), the father of the Bill of Rights (1791-2002), argued at the Constitutional Convention in favor of providing the House of Representatives the power of impeachment by pointing out that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection."
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 17, 2008 Hangin' in the Office with Nancy P.
I had been to Nancy Pelosi's office in the Cannon House Office Building before. In fact, I'd been there several times and usually had a pleasant stay, often very quick and efficient, other times prolonged by everyone's enjoyment of the songs my friends in pink were singing, and as often as not resulting in new friendships with fine officers of the Capitol Police who accompanied us out. This time was going to be different.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 3, 2008 Obama-Clinton Funny Math: Guam Update
Obama and Clinton each picked up 2 pledged delgates in Guam this weekend. Obama now has 1,493 pledged delegates. Clinton has 1,334 pledged delegates. Of the remaining 404 delegates yet to be pledged, Clinton would need to win 282 of them to beat Obama. That's a victory of 70 percent to 30 percent. There is not a single political reporter in the country who considers that a remote possibility.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 14, 2010 A Fable for Our Time
Several years ago we started a community garden where I live. We worked at it quite energetically. We got more and more people involved. Much of the hardest work involved digging irrigation ditches to bring water to the soil.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 13, 2013 ICYMI the SOTU Is SNAFU
A mountain of bad, in fact deadly, ideas that Congress will eagerly support, and a handful of good proposals that no one will work for and Congress will strive to bury: the SOTU is SNAFU, ICYMI.
SHARE Tuesday, February 16, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Dahlia Wasfi on the Past Quarter Century of U.S. Bombing of Iraq
Dahlia Wasfi is an Iraqi-American justice activist who has written and spoken extensively on U.S. policy in the region of Iraq. She is currently writing a book on Iraq and recently published the article "Battling ISIS: Iran-Iraq War Redux." She discusses the past quarter century of U.S. bombing of Iraq.
SHARE Friday, February 26, 2016 A Cease-Fire to Re-Load or to Build Peace?
A cease-fire, even a partial one by only some of the parties to the war in Syria, is the perfect first step -- but only if it's widely understood as a first step.
SHARE Saturday, February 18, 2006 Road to Peace Goes Through Santa Cruz
I'm honored to have been asked to come and talk in the US town that least needs to hear about why this war is wrong and why its architects need to be impeached, removed from office, and prosecuted.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, June 8, 2009 Congress Could Investigate War Fraud With a Mirror
The greatest war fraud is the funding of war by individuals who claim to oppose it and who vote against funding it whenever a bill is guaranteed to pass.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 28, 2009 The Joint Public Option Single Payer United Front
If you support a healthcare bill with a public option in it, chances are many single-payer advocates don't trust you. If you supported that same bill in exactly the same way and also advocated leaving in it the language that allows states to create single-payer, those same missing passionate advocates might not line up perfectly with you, but many of them would be willing to work together -- or at least have a beer.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 17, 2009 KSM and MSM
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the corporate "mainstream" media make quite a pair. We're hearing a very "balanced" debate over whether KSM should be tried in New York City, and whether the most insane objections to that proposal are really insane or not. But what are we not hearing?
SHARE Tuesday, January 19, 2016 If a Social Movement Falls Outside of the Media, Are Any Lives Improved?
When We Fight We Win! is the overly violent and overly optimistic title of a very good new book about recent nonviolent social struggles in the United States for LGBTQ rights, immigrants rights, economic justice, public education, a sustainable environment, and an end to mass incarceration.
SHARE Tuesday, July 12, 2005 Dragging the Media Down Downing Street
One way to break this cycle would be to provide the appropriate public discussion and congressional investigation of the lies that launched the war on Iraq.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 3, 2006 Planning an Impeachment Blog Action
Starting at noon ET on September 1, 2006, and lasting 24 hours, websites and blogs all across the internet are being asked to replace their front pages with the single word "Impeach" in simple white text on a black background.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, March 28, 2008 A Serious Peace Strategy Emerges
In 2006 we elected a Congress to end the occupation of Iraq. If we don't hold that Congress to it, we will not have the power in 2008 to elect anyone for any stated purpose. Fulfillment of campaign promises will be entirely optional in 2009. Our last chance to hold the current Congress to its commitment is in the coming month of April, when the House takes up Bush's request for another $102 billion of our grandchildren's money
SHARE Thursday, September 27, 2007 Whistleblowers on Tape
While they may not be in Congress, there are members of our government willing to risk their careers and more to blow the whistle on the criminal takeover of our former democracy.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 16, 2006 Will They or Won't They? Last Chance for Democrats
So, if the Democrats are playing games until they have their committee chairs, if they're convinced that talking impeachment prior to the "investigations" will lead to fatal attacks from the media, if they're planning to do their jobs and defend our democracy come February, then there is hope for them and for us.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 31, 2013 Drones Are a Local Issue
No city is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 6, 2013 Drones from the Other Side
Imagine you awake to the sound of a machine noisily buzzing over your house, and another machine nearby in the sky, and another. These machines and others like them have been around for months. They never leave. While you live in the United States, the machines belong to the government of Pakistan.
SHARE Monday, June 11, 2007 Impeachment Sells
The latest version of the lengthy report on Bush and Cheney's crimes produced by John Conyers' staff on the House Judiciary Committee includes a foreword by former Congresswoman Liz Holtzman...
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, July 30, 2007 Rep. Conyers Discusses Impeachment
On July 20th, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers discussed the prospects for impeachment at greater length than has previously been widely reported.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 7, 2008 Jim Webb, Roger Ebert Announce Joint Initiative
Senator Jim Webb, (D., Va.) and Roger Ebert, a movie reviewer with the Chicago Sun-Times have announced a joint initiative.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 31, 2005 Yuppies and the Peace Movement
The single biggest reason that the peace movement is not larger and more aggressive is that people with one foot in it are focused on trying to be respectable in the eyes of the corporate media...
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 12, 2007 Why Would Anyone Protest John Conyers?
"I have a choice. I can either stand by and lead my constituents to believe I do not care that the president apparently no longer believes he is bound by any law or code of decency. Or I can act."
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, July 6, 2007 54% Want Cheney Impeached
A new poll conducted by american research group finds that 54% of American adults want the US House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney, including 76% of Democrats, 17% of Republicans, and 51% of Independents.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 20, 2008 No War - No Warming - Blocking Traffic at American Petroleum Institute (VIDEO)
The videos below show exactly how much fun it can be to interrupt the day of war profiteering oil barrons and educate the public about an occupation that we said six years ago would be blood for oil and that we say now is blood for oil.
SHARE Thursday, July 31, 2008 Cara Italia: Can Italy Save America?
Many of my fellow Americans will, I am sure, join me in asking you to lend us, your friends, a much needed helping hand. In doing so, I think you will be coming to the aid of yourselves as well, and of the rest of the world.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 18, 2016 Stop Bombing Non-Hospitals
Of course I would like all militaries to refrain from bombing hospitals, but I want to say a word in support of the not-yet-injured. Don't people of sound body have rights too? If there is a problem with bombing hospitals, why is there not a problem with bombing everywhere else? If there's not a problem with bombing everywhere else, why isn't it OK to bomb hospitals too?
SHARE Thursday, December 7, 2023 What If New Zealand Were to Abolish Its Military
The world should read a new book from New Zealand called Abolishing the Military. New Zealand has decidedly not yet followed Costa Rica and stashed its military in a museum. And were it to do so, I can virtually guarantee you that CNN would never mention the act. But the argument for doing so is powerfully laid out in this book and -- whether the authors mean it to or not -- applies with very slight tweaking to any nation.
SHARE Friday, July 29, 2005 TV Drama on Iraq Tells Us More About Hollywood
A significant percentage of the U.S. news stories about Iraq in the past couple of days have been stories about a fictional TV series set in Iraq – "Over There," which debuted on the FX Network on Wednesday night.
SHARE Friday, June 22, 2007 Cynicism and Generosity to Congress
In May of 2005 the Downing Street Memos came out, and some of us started a website and coalition called After Downing Street. And for many months we worked closely with Congressman John Conyers and many other Democrats in Congress, holding unofficial hearings, trying to pass resolutions of inquiry, and educating the public about impeachable offenses. But for the past year or so, including the past six months...
SHARE Wednesday, December 13, 2006 How to Spend the War Money
Since we Americans apparently have no other need for any money, and since we enjoy paying our taxes so much, they're planning to approve another $160 billion in "emergency" (off the books) cash for the war early next year. That's billion with a B.
SHARE Wednesday, February 7, 2007 Peace and Global Cooling
Those are our two goals now, and we are facing dual catastrophes spearheaded by a single unimpeached president. Some people have understood the goals of peace and environmental protection for quite some time. If the Democratic Party ever finds its soul, when it arrives in Denver for the 2008 Convention it should honor a resident of that city who is currently 91-years-old.
SHARE Tuesday, November 21, 2006 U.S. v. Bush
Now, we almost all agree that Bush and Cheney have done bad things. But have they actually committed crimes? If you know anyone who has any doubts on this topic, may I recommend a brilliant little book for you to stick in their stocking next month?
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 9, 2008 After Hope
There's that word: change. This may be the time for it. It's going to take a lot more than hope.
SHARE Monday, September 5, 2005 Anti-War Events Building to September 24th
On September 15, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey and other congress members will be holding hearings on Capitol Hill on the issue of creating an exit strategy for Iraq.
SHARE Friday, November 11, 2005 Politically Strategic Impeachment
While it would of course be good for the world for Bush and Cheney to be impeached, convicted, and sent packing, would it be politically advantageous for a Congress Member to introduce articles of impeachment?
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 25, 2006 Impeachment News Weekend
New Topic for the Washington Post's Front Page: Impeachment
SHARE Friday, October 24, 2008 See the Warrior
I know this play is powerful from reading the script, so I can only imagine and look forward to how moving it will be to see it performed live.
SHARE Monday, March 27, 2006 Towns, Cities Pass Resolutions Urging Impeachment
Brattleboro, Vermont, has joined nine other towns and cities, five state Democratic parties, and 19 local Democratic committees in passing resolutions urging the impeachment of President Bush and -- in most cases -- Vice President Cheney.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 30, 2006 Hearings on Bush's Crimes Will Unite Nation
An astonishing 44 percent of Americans do not want President Bush impeached (Newsweek), 36 percent approve of the job he's doing (AP-Ipsos), 33 percent support the Iraq War (CNN). What, you may ask, is the matter with these people?
SHARE Friday, February 2, 2007 How a Bill Becomes a Signing Statement
At the House Judiciary Committee hearings on Bush's use of signing statements on Wednesday, two exchanges at the end were quite revealing.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, July 2, 2007 An Open Letter to America: "Now Is The Time for Us to Stand Up and Stand Together"
The power of our voices against the U.S. occupation of Iraq is reaching the top echelons of the military and the administration. Our government is persecuting Americans who speak out against the U.S. military presence in Iraq. The U.S. military has launched politicized attacks on its own military members and moral leaders who oppose the war to discredit their voices of dissent.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 24, 2009 The Risks of a Partial Prosecution
If Attorney General Eric Holder creates a special prosecutor for torture but forbids him or her to prosecute the lawyers who facilitated torture or the top officials who ordered it, proposing to go after only torturers who exceeded the limitations outlined in the lawyers' memos, what are the risks?
SHARE Thursday, November 5, 2009 Between Hate Speech and Adoration
Statements of undisputed facts about President Obama's actions can generate declarations on progressive websites that one has "gone too far" or said something that "should not be said." Honesty has been replaced by loyalty. The most common place to find accurate statements on presidential abuses of power is buried in a sea of lunacy on rightwing websites that conclude their analyses with encouragement of violence.
SHARE Tuesday, August 7, 2007 Failure to Stop Bush Is Not a Victimless Crime
If you support the ongoing occupation of Iraq, I'm sure you have your reasons and that they're based in hard scientific calculations. But please indulge me for a moment and help me do this little math problem:
SHARE Wednesday, February 20, 2008 Thursday Feb. 21: You Are NOT A Lapdog Call-In Day
Call Speaker Pelosi at 202-225-0100 and Majority Leader Hoyer at 202-225-4131. Tell them to stay strong against warrantless wiretapping and billions more for the Iraq war.
SHARE Monday, June 8, 2009 Moran for Virginia
I ran into Creigh Deeds, candidate for Virginia Governor, at the farmer's market in Charlottesville on Saturday.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 8, 2009 Reading the Rules of Disengagement
Should soldiers follow illegal orders? Should they take part in illegal wars and occupations? And if they don't want to do so, what choices do they have?
SHARE Friday, August 26, 2005 Cindy Meets the Media
There's a press conference at 10:30 a.m. CT every day at Camp Casey 2 near Crawford, Texas, and today was no exception.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 3, 2007 Senate Intel Committee Reverses, Nobody Notices
When Republican Senator Pat Roberts chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee, he refused to conduct an investigation into how Bush and Cheney misled the Congress about the case for invading Iraq. The investigation, part of what was known as Phase II, had been agreed to, but Roberts refused to do it prior to the November 2004 elections on the grounds that it could impact the elections. After the elections he refused...
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, November 5, 2007 Why Kucinich Should Concede Nothing
When someone whose opinions I respect as much as John Nichols' joins those who have been saying since 2003 that Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich should announce that he's not REALLY running for president, I feel compelled to reply.
SHARE Thursday, November 9, 2006 Off the Table: A Farce in One Act
Hello? Why do you ask? Yes, I'm sure. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Impeachment is off the table.
SHARE Thursday, November 21, 2013 Debating a Drone
Daddy Warbucks: May I have the first word?
SHARE Monday, November 7, 2005 The Bush-Cheney Ethics Refresher Course
And PhD candidates will be required to address the eternal enigma involved in the question: Is it morally good to aggressively attack another nation if you tell a bunch of lies about it first?
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 25, 2006 Huge March Planned for Eve of Katrina Evictions
FEMA moved the evictions to March 15, so activists have moved the march to March 14. A press conference on Capitol Hill will be followed by a march through Washington, D.C., past FEMA, past the Department of Homeland Security, and to the White House, where a permit has been obtained to rally in Lafayette Square Park until midnight.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 26, 2006 Karl Rove Announces Plans to Steal Elections
White House political head honcho Karl Rove was interviewed by National Public Radio yesterday. He effectively announced plans to steal the coming elections.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 27, 2006 New Year's Utopianism Needed Fast
We are approaching a point at which all of the following will become unavoidable: massive desertification, rising sea level, explosive growth of insect populations, widespread habitat destruction, mass extinctions, mass migrations (including of humans), the disappearance of sea life, and in all likelihood wars over drinking water that will make the wars over oil look civilized.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 12, 2008 Conyers' Phone Rings Steadily for Two Days
There's a new rule on Capitol Hill: the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee can remove impeachment from the Constitution, but cannot also use telephones, Email, or fax machines, because the flood of pro-impeachment communications from outraged citizens is overwhelming each of those devices. Don't believe me? Try phoning, Emailing, or faxing John Conyers' office.
SHARE Monday, March 1, 2010 Single-Payer Healthcare Coming to Missouri
Canada did not create a civilized healthcare system nationally until its provinces led the way. Clearly Congress is dragging behind the states in our country, and it is through state successes that we will eventually compel the U.S. government to provide our people with this basic human right.
SHARE Sunday, January 21, 2007 Huddle Up!
You think you're tired and worn down and you got beat bad, right? Is that what you think? When you pulled off the most powerful offensive attack in league history on February 15, 2003, putting millions of people in the streets against this war, you think no points went up on the board, right? You need to understand that you sidelined three-quarters of their lineup.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 18, 2009 Join the UFPJ Working Group on Accountability and Prosecution
The UFPJ Working Group on Accountability and Prosecution works to achieve accountability and prosecution of high officials guilty of war crimes, including the supreme crime of aggressive war.
(11 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 24, 2007 To Impeach or Not to Impeach
There are those who believe that Bush and Cheney have committed impeachable offenses but that we should not try to impeach them.
SHARE Tuesday, March 8, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Seth Kershner on the Campaign to Demilitarize U.S. Schools
Seth Kershner is a writer and researcher whose work has appeared in such outlets as In These Times, Sojourners, and Rethinking Schools. He is the co-author (with Scott Harding) of Counter-Recruitment and the Campaign to Demilitarize Public Schools (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
SHARE Monday, April 7, 2008 First 100 Days
A friend is drafting a proposal for the first 100 days of a new administration. I sketched out a dream scenario below. What do you think?
SHARE Wednesday, May 15, 2013 Hit and Stay
The CIA has been so busy consulting on Zero Dark Thirty, not to mention funding Hamid Karzai, bribing Russians, lying about weapons, and conducting humanitarian drone murders, that it didn't have any time at all to help out with Hit and Stay, and yet arguably the latter turned out to be the better film despite such a severe handicap.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 8, 2006 Safe Passage on the Earth
A response of "Hey, wow, it's cold out, why don't you take my coat," or "Absolutely not, now put that gun away," tended to protect people much better than a response of "Oh God, don't hurt me," or "Get back, I've got a knife."
SHARE Tuesday, August 1, 2006 The Shame of Not Being Mexican
I'll grant you that in the United States our two big political parties never nominate a candidate of, by, or for poor people. Nonetheless, we have now established a pattern of stolen elections, and we have NOT taken over our nation's capital to demand justice.
SHARE Wednesday, December 12, 2012 The Original Abolitionists
All of us can almost certainly learn a thing or two from the men and women in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in England who abolished first the slave trade and then slavery within the British empire.
SHARE Saturday, June 3, 2006 John Bonifaz Rocks the House
Reports confirm John rocked the House at the Massasschuettes Democratic State Party Convention this AM with his speech!
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 26, 2007 The 18 Percent Congress
If you were a member of Congress, wouldn't you behave completely differently from how most members of Congress behave?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 19, 2007 The Best President Money Can Buy
Does the super wealthy sliver of the American population that "contributes" the vast bulk of the money choose to fund candidates because they're ahead in the polls, or do the sort of people who are willing to answer questions from strangers who phone them during dinner tend to prefer the candidates who have the most money?
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 21, 2007 The Trouble with Thankfulness
Like most Americans, I'm appreciative of all the wonderful people and experiences in my life, and I like the idea of taking a day off from lamenting all the painful, tragic, and humiliating experiences in my life and the many more in the lives of so many people around the world impacted by my government (even if we are now losing an innocent life in Iraq alone at the rate of one every 10 minutes, or 144 in the day I take off.
SHARE Sunday, April 16, 2006 U of Virginia Has Students Arrested, Pays Poverty Wages
17 UVa students staging a peaceful sit-in inside Madison Hall since April 12 for a living wage for all University employees, were arrested last night (Saturday) and taken to jail. Their bond hearing will be tomorrow morning (Monday).
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 17, 2007 NIE: Normalizing Idiocy and Exaggeration
Remember the last NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) that made really big news? Remember how it helped defraud a nation into an aggressive war and occupation that has left nearly a million Iraqis and 4,000 Americans dead? Remember how the declassified bits distorted the truth much further than the full report?
SHARE Tuesday, January 31, 2006 Being a National Activist
Remarks prepared for California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus meeting in Los Angeles, Jan. 28, 2006
SHARE Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Cleveland Corporate Media vs. Dennis Kucinich
Cleveland, Ohio's corporate media has passionately opposed the progressive populist efforts of Dennis Kucinich for decades. This week marks the climax of its most ferocious crusade to remove him from Congress.
SHARE Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Change in the SOFA
In November 2008, then President George W. Bush and then Puppet Nouri al-Maliki negotiated an unprecedented, unconstitutional treaty to "legalize" three more years of war in a manner not unlike the "legalization" of invasions, detentions, torture, and warrantless spying by secret decree of the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 10, 2006 Bush Versus the Constitution
Impeachable offenses are public knowledge, backed by overwhelming evidence and public confession. But, rather than introducing articles of impeachment, Congressman Conyers has backed off promoting H. Res. 635.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, October 23, 2006 ImpeachPAC Announces New Endorsements
Each of the candidates endorsed supports immediate impeachment hearings for President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Each of them has expressed this position publicly.
SHARE Friday, November 9, 2007 Understanding the Next War Money Vote
I pledge to vote No on any bill, and to vote No on bringing to the floor for a vote any bill, that includes any funding to extend the occupation of Iraq. This pledge does not prevent me from voting for funding for a withdrawal, although such funding is clearly not needed by the Pentagon. It does not prevent me from voting for funding for veterans' services or for the reconstruction of Iraq by Iraqis, or for relief for...
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, January 18, 2008 Peace Movement's Options in 2008
What should the peace movement do in 2008 to speed the end of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, bring home the troops and mercenaries and contractors, and stop draining trillions of dollars out of Americans' pockets for an expense that most of us do not want? And what should all organizations do whose domestic missions are devastated by the occupations' drain on the national treasury?
SHARE Sunday, November 20, 2005 Friday Night Congress: What Was That?
What Hunter and the Republicans did on Friday night was to embody a straw man argument in legislative action for the purpose of persuading the media that the straw man was not straw. And they failed miserably.
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, October 8, 2006 The Genius of John Nichols
With "The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism," John Nichols has produced a masterpiece that should be required reading in every high school and college in the United States.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 29, 2006 Calif Dem Party Platform: Immediate Withdrawal
The platform committee has passed and is recommending to the full party on Sunday inclusion in the platform of a call to end the occupation of Iraq and immediately bring the troops home.
SHARE Thursday, June 14, 2007 Nixon Ignored Subpoenas Too
Condoleezza Rice is refusing to comply with a subpoena to appear before Congress. The Justice Department is refusing to produce subpoenaed documents. Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor will almost certainly refuse to comply with subpoenas to appear. Dick Cheney has said that if he is subpoenaed he will not testify. Karl Rove has made his refusal to obey the law so clear that...
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 10, 2008 Veteran Jailed for Speaking
Mike Ferner was found guilty today in District of Columbia Superior Court. He has just been sentenced.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 12, 2008 Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren Writes to John Conyers About Impeachment
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has written a letter to Committee Chairman John Conyers (D., Mich.) on the topic of impeachment. Lofgren refers to the possibility of opening impeachment hearings on Vice President Cheney, President Bush, or a federal judge.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 20, 2007 Kucinich Comes to Take Back America
My friend Steve Cobble gave Kucinich a great introduction, receiving applause for each point he made about Kucinich's platform and past performance, arguing that Kucinich was right four years ago that opposition to the war and support for fair trade were key to winning, and that's how Democrats won in 2006.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 16, 2007 Ten Silent Senators
On June 22, 2005, Democratic Senators Kerry, Johnson, Corzine, Reed, Lautenberg, Boxer, Kennedy, Harkin, Bingaman, and Durbin sent the following letter to the Republican Chairman and Democratic Ranking Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The letter stressed the urgent need for an investigation that over two years later has not been done. Only, now the Democrat is Chairman of the committee, and the other 10 Democrats..
SHARE Thursday, March 13, 2008 Make McCain Choose
What if Senator John McCain were forced to choose an extremely and increasingly unpopular position and stand by it for months as it became less and less popular?
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 11, 2008 Hell Entrance Freezes Over in Omaha
On Friday outside the gates of Stratcom, the strategic command center outside of Omaha, Nebraska, that controls U.S. nuclear weapons and military space technology and from which the next war of aggression will be run, a group of activists gathered from all over the world. A number of people gave speeches in the freezing bone-chilling wind and snow. This was mine:
SHARE Tuesday, August 18, 2009 Nascence to End Work
Cultures isolated from modernity have tended not to engage in anything resembling what we call work. When we began inventing modern time-saving devices and increasing productivity in our factories (and, yes, exploiting other peoples to do the factory work) we were always told we'd be able to work less -- often by people who clearly imagined there were limits to human greed and cruelty.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 28, 2006 Mommy, What's Waterboarding?
Remember the great harm done to the moral core of our nation when, according to the excited news reports following Kenneth Starr's great work in life, children were asking their parents what oral sex was? Neither do I.
SHARE Friday, October 19, 2007 It Was Never About Children's Health
Beginning last November and ever since, I have repeated a standard conversation with many Congress Members and staffers. It starts out with me urging them to impeach Bush and Cheney. They then stress all their other priorities that this would supposedly distract from, including often children's health insurance (SCHIP). I then tell them that any decent bill on any issue will be vetoed. They then get a very clever look...
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 20, 2007 Corpse's Point of View
From the point of view of a corpse, Thursday's die-in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol was overwhelming and diminishing. I was one of twenty some corpses lying dead in a river of blood in front of police and tourists and a color guard of Iraq veterans. I was one of a pile of corpses. You could have added or taken away a corpse or two, and nobody would have noticed.
SHARE Wednesday, December 20, 2006 Congress v. Muslims
This article helps explain why I spend so much time trying to lobby other people's Congress Members, hoping that perhaps I share the same century with them.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 29, 2007 A Veto Is a Vote for Eternal War
For George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, 2008 is too soon to end a war that they intend to last forever. 2008 is too soon to stop constructing enormous military bases in Iraq and abandon them. 2008 is too soon to bring our men and women home to their families and the criminally inadequate health care and nonexistent job assistance that we travel around the world to murder whole nations in defense of.
SHARE Friday, October 7, 2005 Dems Go After Bennett, Salem Radio, FCC
A growing list of Congress Members are not just speaking out about Bill Bennett's recent racist remarks on his radio show.
SHARE Wednesday, November 1, 2006 Oneonta
"Mr. Swanson – Can you address the counter-argument to your idea. That if we leave Iraq a worse leader will take power and attack the US again?"
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 9, 2006 Throwing Stuff Over the White House Fence
Then a line of police officers stepped in the way and blocked the fence. So we began throwing pages, about 50 double-sided sheets at a time, over their heads and over the fence.
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 15, 2008 We Stopped the War Funding!
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted No and blocked Speaker Nancy Pelosi's latest proposal to throw another $165 billion into the occupation of Iraq.
SHARE Monday, July 28, 2008 How to Get a Job By Shooting Up a Church
Imagine being so angry that you couldn't find a job that you were able to decide, as a man in Tennessee just did, that the way to solve your problems was to attack liberals - the people who support (albeit ineffectively) workers' rights, union rights, and fair trade, who oppose NAFTA, oppose tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, support investing in job creation at home rather than wars abroad...
SHARE Monday, June 21, 2010 Repeal DADT or AUMF?
Over the past half century we've made tremendous progress while sliding backwards quite destructively. The progress has come in our domestic relations.
SHARE Thursday, July 8, 2010 War $ Not Passed Yet
On July 1, the House sent a bill with $33 billion in war escalation funding in it back to the Senate, but with changes the Senate will have to deal with. There is a good chance the Senate will make changes and send it back to the House. If that happens, we will be in a good position to stop it
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 28, 2006 Truth Seeping Through Media After Ten Months
Within days of the LA Times mentioning permanent military bases in Iraq, Bush admitting he intends never to pull out of Iraq, and the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post covering the growing movement for impeachment, the New York Times has chosen at long last to acknowledge the White House Memo.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 4, 2007 Democrat's Open-Mic Press Conferences
Unlike the previous majority party in Congress, the Democrats who take power today know their weaknesses. They know they're not very good at the whole press conference thing where you're supposed to stand there and say something people care about. So they've announced an open-mic policy.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 13, 2006 Did They Fool You on Iraq? Are You Ready for Iran?
To understand the lies we're already hearing and the lies we may soon hear about Iran, it's important to understand just what was wrong with attacking Iraq.
SHARE Wednesday, November 7, 2007 John Bruhns: A Veteran's Story
John Bruhns came back from Iraq strongly opposed to the occupation he'd been a part of, believing the Bush administration had misused his patriotism. He began speaking out, and after he won Moveon.org's Video Vets contest he was hired as the Legislative Representative of Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI). Bruhns met with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He spoke at events with
SHARE Friday, June 2, 2006 Bush and Cheney's Ethics for Soldiers
And PhD candidates will be required to address the eternal enigma involved in the question: Is it morally good to aggressively attack another nation if you tell a bunch of lies about it first?
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, February 15, 2008 Obamessives and Obamicans
A friend just described to me the scene last weekend in Richmond, Va., prior to the Tuesday Virginia primary in which Obama trounced Clinton. Both of them spoke at a Democratic Party dinner in Richmond, and a huge crowd outside and inside cheered and screamed, reportedly mostly for Obama.
SHARE Monday, January 4, 2016 Talk Nation Radio: Cian Westmoreland, former U.S. Air Force technician in Afghanistan, speaks against war
Cian Westmoreland is a former Air Force technician who served in Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan at the 73rd Expeditionary Air Control Squadron. He assisted in building a signal relay station that was used for transmitting and receiving data, radio, and radar picture for unmanned and manned missions for approximately 250,000 square miles over Afghanistan.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 4, 2006 The Plan Bush Is Looking For
Our President is pretending that the Democrats have no plan for Iraq, and the media is repeating that pretense unchallenged. But a lot depends on which Democrats we look to.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 15, 2007 War Lies Investigation: Rockefeller Says He'll Get to It Someday
A constituent of Senator Jay Rockefeller, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent his office an article I wrote lamenting his failure to conduct over the past 10 months the investigation of White House war lies that he spent the previous three years criticizing the Republicans for not doing.
Rockefeller's office replied thus:
SHARE Thursday, January 10, 2008 To Nancy With All Due Respect
Dear Nancy. Cindy asked me to write you a letter and promised she would deliver it. So I picture the two of you in your home over tea as you peruse this and a four-foot stack of similar missives, and I hope mine catches your eye, and I hope there are no more of those annoying poor people out front, or that you're able to have them arrested quickly and quietly.
SHARE Friday, February 13, 2009 United for Peace and Jelly? Junipers? Jerkarounds?
Some months back, United for Peace and Justice held a big conference in Chicago for three days, and hundreds of us from all over the country spent most of those three days voting on the language to go in the documents that would determine what UFPJ would work on in the coming year and a half, especially the program document.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 26, 2006 The War Looks Different from Inside Congress
Some in Congress are willing to take half-way and tenth-of-the-way steps in the direction of ending the war, some of them from within such fantasyland worldviews that they are "threatening" to stop occupying Iraq if the Iraqis don't behave better (that is, threatening something that over 80 percent of Iraqis desire).
SHARE Tuesday, May 9, 2006 Ray McGovern Is Going to Rumsfeld's House
Ray McGovern wasn't aiming to make Donald Rumsfeld stutter and stammer like a kid caught cheating on a test when he asked him last week why he'd lied us into a war. That was just a side benefit. Ray wants answers, and he's taking his demand to Donald Rumsfeld's house in Washington, D.C.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 16, 2006 Camp Democracy to Open in DC
On September 5, 2006, Cindy Sheehan will move her camp from Crawford Texas to the nation's capital, and expand it into a weeks-long demonstration against the war, for justice here at home, for environmental sanity, and for accountability from the White House and Congress.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Don't Act Now, It's Not Too Late Yet
The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote today, Wednesday, December 16th, on a war funding bill that will pay for the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Nobody will tell you that.
SHARE Thursday, December 29, 2005 Rumsfeld Admits to "Ghosting" Detainee
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that he "ghosted" a detainee, meaning that he made the decision to hold a prisoner without keeping any records of the fact.
SHARE Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Call now for single payer healthcare vote!
Please call for single payer, especially if you live in one of the swing representative's districts.
It is entirely possible that Weiner's single-payer amendment will pass, but even if it does not pass, the support it musters will nonetheless serve to improve the bill and maintain a useful public option. Without it, the compromise to win over the worst Democrats has to begin with the current bill and move down from there.
SHARE Friday, August 5, 2005 Solomon's Unspinning of War
Norman Solomon's new book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," opens with a disturbing prologue.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, November 4, 2005 53% of Americans Support Impeachment
By a margin of 53% to 42%, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 23, 2006 4,435 Dead in Vain
Supporting our troops and working to ensure that they not have died in vain are notions that no longer apply to the soldiers who died in the fields around my house in Virginia.
SHARE Thursday, February 22, 2007 Peace Activists Throw Out Prime Minister - Too Bad It's Italy's
Prime Minister Richard Cheney may be glancing around with more nervousness and menace than usual after recent news reports, not just from the Libby trial, but also from Italy, where the peace movement has just thrown out a prime minister.
SHARE Friday, June 28, 2013 Sequester Optionally Applied Only to Good Things
The spending limits on the military are being blatantly violated. Both houses of Congress have now passed military budgets larger than last year and larger than is allowed under the sequester.
SHARE Wednesday, January 31, 2024 The Urgent Need to Attack Iran Has Been Falsley Advertised for 20 Years
For a couple of decades now, the very worst people in Washington, D.C., have pushed hard for a war on Iran. Some high points have come in 2007, 2015, 2017, and 2024. Each time it has been absolutely critical to attack Iran at once. There could be no delay. Dominoes would fall. Terrorism would prevail. Credibility would be sqandered. And yet, each time, the threatened war has not been launched, and the world has gone on.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Report: US Has Prepared to Attack Iran
Detailed Pentagon plans for a military attack on Iran are far more extensive than has been reported in the U.S., according to top British military analysts. There have been occasional news reports on various strategic bombing options - both conventional and nuclear - but this is the first comprehensive look at the full range of Pentagon plans.
SHARE Sunday, August 21, 2005 Sheehan Breakthroughs, Unbridgeable Divides, and Taboos Unbroken
There has, of course, been a major anti-war movement longer than there has been a war. And Cindy Sheehan has been speaking eloquently at anti-war events for many months. What has changed is primarily the media.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 31, 2007 The Bills That Can End the War
Senator Feingold held a hearing on the topic yesterday and plans to introduce a bill today to end the war by denying the President the money to continue it. Congress Members Lynn Woolsey, Jim McGovern, and Jerrold Nadler have bills in the House to do the same. But the bills are not all the same.
SHARE Sunday, February 22, 2009 GEOGHEGAN: RHYMES WITH REAGAN, SOUNDS LIKE WELLSTONE
Progressive Democrats of America has endorsed Tom Geoghegan in his bid to replace Rahm Emanuel in the House seat representing Illinois' 5th Congressional District.
SHARE Thursday, December 1, 2005 Bonifaz Launches Campaign
John Bonifaz officially anounced his candidacy for Secretary of State.
SHARE Saturday, February 11, 2006 Debating Impeachment Among Democrats
Are you going to tell me that nonviolent people's movements can create democracy in Russia, can kick the British out of India, can resist the Nazi occupation in Denmark, but can't win the votes of 15 Republicans.
(9 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 30, 2009 McCain Could Have Meant Less War
After two stolen elections by Bush-Cheney, an election of Grandpa John "Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain and his sorority president sidekick -- whether honest or blatantly stolen and tolerated -- would have said something hugely depressing and debilitating about the American people. But arguably it could have saved a great many lives around the world. Here's how.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, October 8, 2007 Sen. Reid Struggles for a Reason to Oppose Impeachment
Christiane Brown (KJFK, Reno) interviews Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in this audio clip from last week and presses him on why he admits impeachable offenses have been commited but opposes impeachment.
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, February 9, 2007 Truth Exposed at Senate Armed Services Hearing
The Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing today at which the Inspector General of the Pentagon, Thomas Gimble, testified that – and I'm loosely paraphrasing – the Iraq War was launched on a pack of lies.
SHARE Thursday, November 30, 2023 Who Should Have Won the Past 123 Nobel Peace Prizes
The Nobel Peace Prize is often criticized when the committee that awards it gives the prize to vicious warmongers and to people who've done great things that had nothing to do with abolishing war or armaments. But who would ideally have won the prize each year since 1901?
SHARE Friday, November 17, 2006 Want to End the War? Demand Investigations!
Public awareness of the lies that led to the war and the crimes committed during the war helps build public demand for the troops to come home. Not every committee in Congress can work fulltime on simply ending the war: a legislative process that must be pursued but which will be uphill and subject to veto or signing statement. Many committees in the House and Senate, without taking any energy away from ending the war, can..
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, February 4, 2008 Vote Against Clinton
Vote in the primaries on Tuesday for the corporate mediocrity with the charismatic and vacuous platitudes. It's important.
SHARE Saturday, October 15, 2005 Peering Under the Plame Outing
I wrote these remarks down on Thursday, when a Washington Post columnist was pleading with Patrick Fitzgerald to please just go away
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 5, 2006 Public Energy Is Misdirected
What would happen if politically active progressive Americans suddenly stopped devoting their energies to drafting better sound bites, and instead directed all that time and passion into a serious and strategic campaign of civil disobedience?
SHARE Saturday, April 26, 2008 Mary Pallant Plans to Unseat Elton Gallegly
California's 24th District is grotesquely misrepresented by Cheney-Bush rubber stamper Elton Gallegly, who is ready to start his lobbying career on K Street but who was talked into running again by the Republican Party.
SHARE Thursday, December 1, 2005 Best Blue Town in the South
That's right, I've left the beautiful beltway and moved back to the coolest city in the country: Charlottesville, Va., where...
SHARE Thursday, November 29, 2007 Talking with Two Who Walk the Walk
I recently interviewed, for 60 minutes each, two individuals who have walked the walk. Eve Tetaz at age 76 has gone to jail for protesting the occupation of Iraq. Aidan Delgado laid down his weapon in Iraq and declared himself a conscientious objector.
SHARE Tuesday, November 8, 2005 Letter to Ahmed Chalabi
We write to you as members of the 60 to 70 percent of Americans who believe that this war has been (in the words of the polling companies) a "mistake," or (in our own words) a criminal fraud.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 18, 2006 Taking Stands
Recently someone Emailed me a brief policy statement on four major issues. They'd received it from a political activist group, they said, and were passing it along with praise. I think it's worth commenting on, because the positions are those many progressive groups take, but – far from being "stands" on the issues, as my correspondent described them, they are closer to being methods of rolling over.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 25, 2008 4,000 Deaths - 435 Town Halls
We just passed another tragic milestone with the 4,000th death of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, while the uncounted death toll of innocent Iraqis climbs beyond 1 million.
SHARE Tuesday, October 17, 2006 Bush as Brat: Pretensions to Empire
Lewis Lapham, essayist extraordinaire and editor of Harper's magazine, asked Congressman John Conyers what he thought the point was of publishing a lengthy report laying out evidence of Bush's impeachable offenses. Conyers' response was:
SHARE Tuesday, August 30, 2005 Rally to End War at White House 9-15
There will be a rally at Lafayette Square Park (in front of White House) at 5 p.m. ET on September 15, 2005.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 30, 2006 We Support Rush Holt for Intelligence Committee Chair!
We, the undersigned, urge the Honorable Speaker Nancy Pelosi to appoint Rep. Rush Holt to be the next Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
SHARE Sunday, January 14, 2024 Murder Is Justice and Danger Is Safety
What are we to say about a U.S. culture in which people can openly admire Germany for backing yet another genocide, and condemn warning of World War III as reckless endangerment?
SHARE Monday, January 22, 2007 Rep. Jim McGovern to Introduce Bill to Bring Troops Home
Rep. Jim McGovern will introduce new legislation, which replaces HR 4232 "End the War in Iraq Act of 2005". In the new bill, "The Safe and Orderly Withdrawal Act," the U.S. would begin the safe and orderly withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq within 30 days of enactment to be completed within 180 days.
SHARE Friday, May 4, 2007 20 Peace Organizations Send Letter to Reid and Pelosi
The undersigned organizations write to urge you in the strongest possible terms to respond to President Bush's veto of the supplemental appropriations bill with a stronger bill, not a weaker one.
SHARE Monday, December 21, 2009 Resolutions, Not Hopes
I resolve to do everything in my ability, while preserving my power to continue in future years, to reverse the destruction of the environment, the proliferation of weapons and wars, and the concentration of wealth.
SHARE Tuesday, February 7, 2006 Cities and State Parties Pass Impeachment Resolutions
The past month has seen a burst of resolutions supporting impeachment in city councils, state democratic parties, and even chapters of Democrats Abroad.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, January 26, 2007 "Don't Let Dick Cheney Get Me!"
This country has learned to be afraid... of Dick Cheney. The number one reason a significant minority of Americans still hesitates to get behind impeachment of Bush is fear of Dick Cheney. This will remain the case even should Cheney die, I am convinced. Certainly it remains the case no matter how many times I explain the following six reasons why it's INSANE, but I'm going to try one more time.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 8, 2008 We Can Stop the Iraq Funding - Here's How
Congress Members have received thousands of phone calls, and some of them are committing to voting no on Iraq funding. The vote won't happen until next week, so keep the calls coming: Call your Congress Member now at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote No on the war funding.
SHARE Tuesday, July 14, 2009 Happy Fifth Birthday, PDA!
The most useful tool progressive political activists have in the United States, at the local, state, and national levels, was created from scratch five years ago, and has been developed and sharpened while proving itself time and again in each and every week since.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, February 2, 2007 Rightwingers Attack War Supporters
This is what it's come to. The local newspaper in my town in Virginia today ran an op-ed by rightwinger Cal Thomas attacking Hillary Clinton for her past support for the war.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 29, 2007 Veto This
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is right to point Unitary Executive George W. Bush toward a copy of the Constitution. The President (should Bush care to resume that legal role) is permitted to veto bills but not to write them. In particular, the President cannot rewrite legislation after it has been voted on and before he signs it. Nor can any member of Congress.
SHARE Saturday, April 15, 2006 May Day, Memo Day, Mission Accomplished Day
The first of May is May Day, the real labor day, the commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre and the fight for an 8-hour day in Chicago – an American holiday celebrated everywhere except America. But the first of May is two other things as well in more recent but already fading history.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 29, 2005 The Relevance of Marching
David Corn, www.davidcorn.com, published an article today on his site and on www.tompaine.com arguing that last weekend's march on Washington to end the war was a waste of time and money and energy and won't help end the war. I disagree, but think Corn makes some useful points.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 4, 2009 A New Beginning: If Only
President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo probably did a world of good. It was packed with truth telling and noble sentiments. But imagine how much more good would be done if all the best parts of it corresponded to reality.
SHARE Wednesday, September 6, 2006 Come to Camp Democracy
Camp Democracy opened on the Mall in Washington on Tuesday, and will run through September 21st. We need you to come and join us now!
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, January 22, 2007 How We Can End the Occupation of Iraq
President George Bush deflects criticism of his war plans by claiming that his critics have no plans of their own. Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, asserts that matters of war must be left in the hands of the President (presumably no matter how brilliant your alternative plan).
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, February 16, 2007 Conyers and the Impeachment Table
Congressman John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has used the following rhetoric repeatedly in recent weeks:
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 30, 2007 Lobbying for Impeachment
Our president took us into war before Congress gave its so-called authorization. He did so without telling Congress or the American people and without Congress appropriating any funds for the purpose. In the summer of 2002, Bush took $2.5 billion – according to the Congressional Research Service – away from other projects, including Afghanistan, and used it to build airfields in Qatar and to begin bombing Iraq...
SHARE Saturday, July 28, 2007 Reparations
When a Member of Congress wants to push an agenda forward, even one supported by very few other Congress Members, he or she will introduce or sign onto a bill and urge others to do the same. Almost every Congress Member is willing to do this sort of thing, often on very controversial issues. But when a Member of Congress wants to oppose an agenda without explaining why, he or she will tell you "I can't sign onto that because..
SHARE Wednesday, February 7, 2007 Majority of Senators Quietly Vote Against Escalation
This fairly well cuts through the courageous debate over whether to have a debate over whether to meaninglessly dissent from Bush's escalation plans for a war that most Americans want ended.
SHARE Friday, June 7, 2013 Join Me in D.C. Saturday
Saturday June 8 is packed in Washington, D.C. Here's where I'll be and I hope to see you! --David Swanson
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 3, 2006 Honesty in Iraq
These are the statements of a man who knew he was lying, a man who believes nobody should care whether he lies or not, a man who doesn't much care himself, but still nonetheless a sane – albeit heartless, cruel, and stupid – human being who knew he was lying.
(2 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 3, 2007 CNN and 4 Dems Opt to Skew Debate
CNN allowed the eight Democratic presidential campaigns to vote: Should CNN continue to place its preferred candidates together in the center of the stage in order to keep the candidates it ignores off camera at the edges, or should it follow the model PBS used last week and choose candidate positions on the stage by random drawing?
SHARE Thursday, October 11, 2007 ACORN Gives Members Only 4 Choices
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is robocalling its members and offering them a choice of Edwards, Clinton, Obama, or Richardson. That's it. No other choices. The smart money says Kucinich loses this one.
SHARE Monday, February 1, 2010 Rep. Delahunt Backs War to Please Obama
Add Congressman Bill Delahunt to the list of misrepresentatives who claim to oppose wars when a Republican is president but agree to support them when a Democrat moves into the White House.
SHARE Wednesday, August 17, 2005 Bush Won't Answer Cindy, But Has to Answer Congress
Were the reasons Bush gave Congress for why the war was necessary truthful ones? What did Bush tell Tony Blair three and a half years ago when he invited him, unlike Cindy, in out of the Texas sun?
SHARE Thursday, September 29, 2005 Chomsky's New Book
David Barsamian has conducted a series of interviews with Chomsky between March 2003 and February 2005, and has consistently asked penetrating and provocative questions.
SHARE Tuesday, May 23, 2006 So, How WOULD a Patriot Act?
Glenn Greenwald's new book "How Would a PATRIOT ACT? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok," lays out a powerful, concise, and well-researched argument that President Bush is a threat to our government's system of checks and balances and to our individual liberties.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 6, 2007 Get Out of the Valley of Elah
I walked out stunned, shaken, far more angry than I'd been, and convinced that we shouldn't be asking Congress Members to end the occupation, we should be asking them to watch this movie.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, March 28, 2008 Donna Edwards Moves Right, Falls into Line
Donna Edwards worked wonders by nearly beating Al Wynn in a Maryland congressional primary in 2006 and threatening to run again.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, December 5, 2005 Progressive Primary Challenge to Hilary Launched
On Tuesday in New York, Jonathan Tasini will announce the launch of his campaign for United States Senate, challenging Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 19, 2006 The Industrial Services Complex Formerly Known as the Military
The U.S. military no longer cooks its own food, washes its own laundry, repairs its own vehicles, or guards its own V.I.P.s. We've privatized everything, right down to the shooting -- mercenaries make up the second largest contingent in the Coalition of the Killing.
SHARE Friday, March 2, 2007 The Employee Free Fire Zone Act
Well, now workers ARE clearly on the front lines, but they don't seem to be on the same side of the battle as the White House.
SHARE Monday, November 12, 2007 The Reverse Shock Doctrine
I wonder what would happen if the people and their representatives were to shock the powerful and their funders for a change?
SHARE Wednesday, December 6, 2023 What the People Have to Say About Weaponizing the World
"Please wise up and recognize that this Earth and the life it sustains is the most important thing. Stop fomenting war and relinquish your love of power and your worship of Death."
SHARE Monday, August 28, 2006 Camp Democracy Is One Week Away
Read about our press conference at the National Press Club on Tuesday, August 29th and all of the amazing speakers lined up for Camp Democracy
SHARE Friday, May 29, 2009 Open Govt Extends Hours: What Will You Vote For?
The president's open government site was supposed to allow brainstorming through May 28th, but the top policy proposal and third highest ranked proposal overall, as of the end of the 28th, was "End the Imperial Presidency."
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, July 16, 2007 Edwards Brings Progress to Progressives?
And, yes, Edwards' money supports, among other things, some of the most deadly health insurance companies around.
SHARE Monday, September 7, 2009 Rep. Sutton Commits on Pub Option
I'm in Congresswoman Betty Sutton's home town in Ohio and just spoke with her as she got ready to march in a Labor Day parade.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 7, 2008 Clinton Must Now Win 90 to 10 or Quit
It's reached a point that everyone has known for months it had to reach, the point at which even people paid to do so cannot keep it going with a straight face.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 13, 2008 Students Shut Down Capitol Hill
Today was the day for Stop-Loss Congress. We notified every Congress Member and Senator over the past two days that they were being stop-lossed and denied permission to leave until they end the occupation of Iraq.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 2, 2008 Cheney to Join Bush in Celebrating Constitution (R.I.P.) on Fourth of July
While George Dubya will desecrate Monticello with some dishonest remarks from a podium on Friday as new citizens swear to defend the Constitution he has destroyed, this AP story has the plans of the man in charge. Dick Cheney will make his remarks on a ship named the Constitution and talk about fighting pirates rather than being one:
SHARE Sunday, June 17, 2007 Take Back Impeachment
Impeach Bush and Cheney at the Take Back America Conference
SHARE Friday, March 2, 2007 NY Times Spins Health Coverage Opinion
After a long list of questions that confused any distinction between health care and health coverage, the New York Times/CBS asked:
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 25, 2007 We're Sorry Too, Pete
We're at least as sorry as you are, Pete. You can be sure that your apology hurts us more than it hurts you. And it's a safe bet it'll hurt Iraqis and Iranians even more.
SHARE Monday, May 29, 2006 Peace in a Gas Pump or Bringing Pharaoh's Armed Madhouse Home
Can you imagine the political ramifications if Republicans upset about both war lies and gas prices understood that the war was, in fact, launched in order to raise the gas prices?
SHARE Friday, March 28, 2008 Using People's Lives to Win (or Lose) Elections
How would you like to vote for a political party that sacrifices hundreds of thousands of lives to win elections? Yeah, neither would I. So, how can they be so sure they will win elections?
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, January 25, 2008 Let War Resisters Stay in Canada
On Friday at 3 p.m. in front of the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., a group of veterans and other citizens is expected to make a demand that Canada allow hudreds of U.S. resisters to the occupation of Iraq to remain in Canada.
SHARE Tuesday, February 14, 2006 Taking Protest to Congress Members' Homes
Groups are organizing nonviolent peaceful demonstrations every weekend in front of the homes of congress members.
SHARE Friday, November 23, 2007 Nukes' Seventh Decade
Jonathan Schell's latest book "The Seventh Decade" places our current situation in the context of the past 62 years of the nuclear age, or the past 68 years as Schell might prefer to date it. It was 68 years ago that scientists concluded a nuclear bomb was possible. Scientists and politicians immediately began trying to develop nukes out of fear that someone else would do so first.
SHARE Monday, March 24, 2008 Healthcare Or Warfare: It's time to Choose
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world is, by no coincidence, also the wealthiest nation in the world that does not provide its people with health coverage. About one in six Americans has no health coverage at all, and another two or three out of those six lack adequate coverage even though they pay more than enough to receive it and to provide it to those who lack it as well.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 23, 2008 Cheney Impeachment News
Wexler is now accepting non-Judiciary Committee members signatures on his letter to Conyers urging Cheney impeachment hearings.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 29, 2007 Secret to Forcing Compliance with Subpoenas
On April 10th, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department for papers and Emails related to the apparently politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys. The deadline passed. The DOJ did not comply.
SHARE Thursday, August 20, 2009 Obama IS Leading, But in the Wrong Direction
And you can overturn any of the most foul smelling developments in Congress's crawl to healthcare, and you'll find that Obama told the Democrats exactly what to do, and they did it.
SHARE Tuesday, April 18, 2006 Iran Through the Media
Diplomacy, Gearan informs us, should be put down as "plodding," and as having not borne fruit. When it was tried and what fruit it was supposed to have borne need not even be explained. The point is to put down diplomacy.
SHARE Saturday, April 22, 2006 A Living Wage Revolution
"The president of the University of Virginia on Friday acknowledged that students fighting for better pay for university workers have a valid case for change, calling the debate "revolutionary" in its shifting of the poverty burden from government to the private sector."
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 28, 2006 Treating Criminality As Daring Boldness: The Media on Bush
Bush as a daring rebel outsider taking on a bunch of timid traditionalists. It's cowboy Bush versus the Washington elite – though presumably not any longer the nation-building, foreign-entanglement-prone elite that Bush campaigned against in 2000.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, October 12, 2007 PNACo Fascism Awareness Week
During the week of October 22-26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses. Already over 368 people have expressed interest in participating.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 14, 2006 Democracy Corpse
The Take Back America conference produced some stunningly boring speeches, speeches that many had heard before, speeches (like Hillary's) that no one had any use for, speeches that make Al Gore seem lively. But the pollsters from Democracy Corps(e) took the prize.
SHARE Thursday, January 25, 2024 Do We Value Anything Else as Much as Military Spending?
The 2020 Democratic Party Platform said that Democrats would reduce military spending: "We can maintain a strong defense and protect our safety and security for less." Right on! Get out the vote!
SHARE Saturday, September 1, 2007 Slavery, Iraq, and Justice Delayed
The Governor of Virginia, Timothy M. Kaine, has just pardoned Gabriel Prosser for leading a slave revolt in Virginia over 200 years ago. Prosser sought to organize thousands of slaves to accomplish the "wholesale massacre" of whites in Richmond and other slave-holding areas, according to historian Virginius Dabney.
SHARE Monday, December 4, 2006 Mandate for Peace Sends Letter to Every Democrat in House and Senate
Dear Democratic Representatives and Senators,
You are about to head into a week that will include a Democratic forum on December 5th to discuss the future of Iraq, and the release of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 29, 2005 Conyers Talks Impeachment
Listen to audio of Congressman John Conyers talking about the Bush Administration's crimes, and his efforts to censure Bush and Cheney and to create an investigation that would develop articles of impeachment.
SHARE Saturday, April 8, 2006 Hawaii Legislature Works to End War
The Hawaii State Senate has passed a resolution "CALLING UPON THE GOVERNOR OF HAWAII TO TAKE STEPS TO WITHDRAW THE HAWAII ARMY AND AIR NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS FROM IRAQ."
SHARE Wednesday, December 6, 2006 Permanent Bases and Temporary Presidents
Did you notice something about the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report? It recommends all sorts of changes, all of them far short of actually ending the war, but it recommends them all to the same person responsible for the disastrous situation we're in now.
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 4, 2007 Kucinich on What He'd Do
If you were elected president, what do you think would be the first thing you would do in office?
SHARE Tuesday, May 5, 2009 An Even Worse Bybee Memo
This memo justified a war of aggression and all the crimes and abuses of power abroad and at home that were justified by the war. Jay Bybee has a lifetime appointment as a federal judge wearing black robes drenched in the crimson blood of his victims. His crimes are on paper in black and white for the world to see. If he is not impeached and prosecuted, similar horrors await our planet in the near future.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 21, 2007 Two Chances to Change the World
We're headed rapidly toward a disastrous attack on Iran, an acceptance of permanent occupation of Iraq, over 1,000 US military bases in other people's countries, and the point of no turning back on global warming.
SHARE Saturday, October 22, 2005 Outing WHIG
The White House Iraq Group (WHIG) produced white papers detailing so-called intelligence of Iraq's nuclear threat that later proved to be false.
SHARE Friday, December 30, 2005 Can Cheney Save the Bush Presidency?
Talk of censure and impeachment has begun swirling around President Bush. Can Vice President Cheney come to the rescue?
SHARE Saturday, August 27, 2005 The Calm Before
It's very, very early morning on Saturday, August 26, in Crawford, Texas. The roads are as dark as Dick Cheney's heart, and the stars as numerous as W's lies. All hell has not yet broken loose and may or may not do so later today.
SHARE Friday, September 2, 2005 Missing the Forest for the Uprooted Floating Trees
How do we get the major media outlets in this country to notice that the White House is run by oil barons who launch illegal wars based on lies, defund everything else, and destroy the environment at every opportunity
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 16, 2007 Bill Fletcher Weighs in on Impeachment
In fact, the bulk of Fletcher's article is devoted to opposing impeachment on the grounds that we should concentrate on ending the occupation, creating single-payer health care, and because the Senate might not convict.
SHARE Thursday, June 8, 2006 How to Impeach a President
Announcing a "National Teach-In" on impeachment organized by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Melville House, launching nationwide on July 19 in cities and towns across the country.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, January 11, 2008 The Speech McCain Should Give
I am not a United States Senator today. I am not a candidate for President. Today, on the 6th anniversary of the first incarcerations at Guantanamo, I am a man who has been tortured.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 6, 2006 Specter Supports Impeachment
The question at hand goes beyond whether Congress should subpoena additional evidence of criminality. The question is whether those who know impeachment is the proper course will act on it.
SHARE Friday, April 21, 2006 Congressional Hearing on Iraq Planned
Congresswomen Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee will host a hearing on the Iraq War next Thursday, April 27, 8:30-11 a.m., in 2325 Rayburn House Office Building (with an overflow room planned for anyone wanting to attend who can't fit in).
SHARE Saturday, January 26, 2008 The Whisper Was for Romney
Some of you may recall the powerful evidence in 2004 that George W. Bush was cheating in the debates by wearing an earpiece. The New York Times famously (well, at least somewhat famously) documented the evidence and then refused to print it because it might have had an effect on the election:
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 25, 2007 Another Congress Member for Impeachment
Congressman Robert Brady, (D., PA), who represents portions of Philadelphia, on Tuesday signed on as a cosponsor of House Resolution 333, articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.
SHARE Friday, April 14, 2006 Arrests in Crawford Happening Now
Barbara Cummings just phoned from outside Bush's ranch in Carwford, Texas, to say that she and about 14 others, including Cindy Sheehan, are about to be arrested for trespassing.
SHARE Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Obama Needs Only 14 More Delegates to End Clinton's (and Everyone's) Misery
There are 103 delegates on the line next Tuesday in Kentucky and Oregon. There's not a single employee of any of the media outlets promoting this phony contest that believes Obama could possibly win fewer than 14 delegates in Kentucky and Oregon.
SHARE Thursday, January 5, 2006 130 Out of Iraq Events on Jan. 7
Local organizations have planned over 130 Out of Iraq events around the country on or about January 7th.
SHARE Thursday, February 7, 2008 The Speech McCain Should Give
I may be a United States Senator and a candidate for President and the Republican frontrunner. But I am, more importantly (assuming you'll take my word for it) a man who has been tortured.
SHARE Wednesday, June 14, 2006 Feingold Rocks TBA Conference
Eli Pariser introduced Russ Feingold this morning, who was cheered with "Run, Russ, Run!" as he arrived, and who received four standing ovations just during the introduction and many, many more during his speech.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Shut Up and Stop the War!
An Iraq vet named Charlie Anderson told me that he likes to get his photo taken with senators and House members, and then have his friend fiddle with the camera, so that Charlie gets to talk while the elected official has to stand there and smile. And this is what Charlie says: "Congressman, I work every day to try to end this war. You only talk about it. I'd like it if we switched roles: you do something, and I'll talk...
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 28, 2007 Only Nonviolence Will End The War
A handful of pro-war people, some volunteer and some probably paid to be there, will stage a counter-demonstration. This relatively tiny pro-death contingent will garner 50 percent of the media coverage if those on the side of peace do everything right.
SHARE Tuesday, June 16, 2009 McGovern: Reporter Made It Up, I'm Voting NO on War $
I just spoke with Keith Stern, communications director for Congressman Jim McGovern and asked him whether the report in Congress Now yesterday was true, that McGovern, who has been one of the most reliable members of Congress in opposing wars, would now be voting Yes on the war money.
SHARE Thursday, August 25, 2005 Blogging in the Crawford Heat
I came to Crawford today, and it's a little different from DC in several ways, but mostly it's hotter.
SHARE Saturday, January 19, 2008 A Solution for the Peace Movement
Congress has the power to bring all troops, mercenaries, and contractors home safely this year. The cost of bringing them home is minimal and already covered by funds appropriated for wars and for a military budget that eats up over half of every tax dollar. We cannot afford another year of damaged world relations, of dead bodies, and of enormous financial expense. Representatives can commit to voting No...
SHARE Thursday, March 18, 2010 John Yoo Celebrates Sunshine Week
The University of Virginia here in Charlottesville is doing its part by hosting book tour stops for the chief author of the worst secret laws ever established. John Yoo will be speaking at the Miller Center and at an event hosted by the Federalist Society. Yoo will be speaking in support of unlimited presidential power, including the power to create secret laws.
SHARE Thursday, April 19, 2007 Putting the Gone in Gonzales
Kyle Sampson, Gonzo's Chief of Staff, is a gentleman who well deserves his name given the apparently superhuman feat he's performed of running the Department of Justice for years in exactly the direction his boss did not want it to go. That being said, Gonzales stands by every decision he never made, even the ones he remembers not making.
SHARE Friday, March 2, 2007 I'm More Pro-Troop Than You Are
While political journalists are mostly tied up with the imminent national elections a mere 20 months away, there is also a lot of serious focus in the media on this contest for the most pro-troop proposal.
SHARE Sunday, December 11, 2005 Cindy Sheehan goes to Downing Street
Today Cindy Sheehan, Brian Haw, and a crowd of other peace activists paid a visit to #10 Downing Street, the home of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
SHARE Thursday, May 31, 2007 Iraq, Cowboys, and the Enormity of 18 Months
Eighteen months ago Congressman John Murtha and other pro-war Democrats had not yet developed even a muddled half-hearted opposition to the occupation of Iraq, Joe Lieberman had not lost a primary, MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress were pretending there was no such thing as Iraq, and the Democratic Party had shoved its collective head so far up...
SHARE Tuesday, June 23, 2009 Trading Press Events for Votes: What Should Press Do?
If you were a reporter and suspected that the PR stunt you were "reporting" on was very likely part of a deal to win a vote for war and bank bailouts, would you mention that circumstance? Would you perhaps refuse to cover the "event" at all? Would you choose to cover the deficit and green jobs events but report separately on the vote-whipping and partisan corruption? Or would you simply sit back and allow yourself to be played
SHARE Sunday, December 4, 2005 An International Peace Movement Building
On Saturday, December 10, in London, England, leaders of the peace movement against the Iraq war from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Iraq will meet to strategize.
SHARE Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Agnew v. Cheney - How Did the Good Guys Finally Win?
Nailing Dick Cheney for tax evasion would be like nailing Al Capone for tax evasion. But the last time a U.S. president faced a strong movement for impeachment for actual impeachable offenses, one of the major road blocks was fear that an unpopular vice president would take his place, and this road block was removed when Spiro Agnew resigned in the face of criminal charges of cheating on his taxes.
SHARE Thursday, February 9, 2006 Impeachment Versus Arianna
Joe Scarborough hosted a discussion of impeachment last night on MSNBC.
SHARE Monday, April 24, 2006 Pacifica Radio to Air Congressional Iraq Forum Live
I'll be co-hosting with Verna Avery-Brown of Pacifica Radio a live broadcast on Pacifica from 8:30-11 a.m. ET on Thursday, April 27, of a forum on Capitol Hill hosted by Congresswomen Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee.
http://www.pacifica.org/stations
SHARE Thursday, November 30, 2006 Closer to Home
I did something worse than St. Augustine did when I was a kid. I must confess I broke into a house on the other side of town, and I did it just because it was such an ugly beat-down house that needed work so badly. Well, that and I kind of wanted to move out of my parents'.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 13, 2006 Verdict: Bush Is Guilty
There can no longer be any doubt that the Bush Administration did not experience a failure of intelligence, but rather a success of stupidity and arrogance.
SHARE Friday, July 6, 2007 Greenwald's Impeach Cheney Video
That's right, we said the "I" word. And you should be saying it too -- to your family, your friends, your neighbors, your pets and the hearty 26% of Americans who somehow still believe the Bush/Cheney team more worthy of sitting in the Oval Office than an undisclosed location stripped of all authority to further damage the country we love.
SHARE Tuesday, January 30, 2024 Understanding the Doppelganger Gang
Doppelganger is actually about, among other things, the situation we're in, not for the first time, of seeing people swing from the left to the right politically, and more than that of seeing people on the left partially swing to cobble together a bunch of rightwing positions (or beliefs) with their leftwing ones so that you don't know what to call these people's politics anymore -- and even more than that of people ...
SHARE Tuesday, September 19, 2006 Videos from Impeachment Day at Camp Democracy
John Nichols, Marcus Raskin, Elizabeth Holtzman, Dave Lindorff, Elizabeth de la Vega, David Green, David Swanson, David Waldman, Ray McGovern, Jennifer Van Bergen, Geoff King, Michael Avery,
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 1, 2007 Video of Portland, ME, Impeachment Rally
Maine's "Impeachment Day" event was the Maine Impeachment Town Meeting held April 28, 2007, at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 7, 2009 March on Congress or President?
It might be ideal to protest, pressure, and lobby both the Congress and the president, but if you have to choose the top priority, which is it?
SHARE Thursday, January 31, 2008 Liveblogging Obama v. Clinton v. CNN
Hillary Is blaming the Iraqis. I flip on the debate and that's the first thing I have to hear. Sheesh.
SHARE Wednesday, July 8, 2009 Two Ways to Pay As You Go
The day after ramming through nearly $100 billion more for wars and $100 billion in loans to European banks through the IMF, the majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer, introduced a "PayGo" bill, requiring that any spending be paid for with cuts in other spending.
SHARE Monday, June 12, 2006 BLOGGING FROM TAKE BACK AMERICA CONFERENCE
The first event was a meeting for bloggers with movie star Robert Redford and Jerome Ringo, President of the Apollo Alliance, which is "challenging Americans to achieve energy independence by 2015." www.apolloalliance.com
SHARE Sunday, January 21, 2007 Video: War, Media, Impeachment
With Amy Goodman, John Nichols, David Swanson, Larry Everest, Mark Manning, Robin Andersen, Sam Husseini, Normon Solomon, Jeff Cohen, Peter Hart, Russ Baker, Sunsara Taylor, Peter Phillips
(8 comments) SHARE Friday, January 26, 2007 Putting it on the Table: Kucinich Says Bush Risking Impeachment
"The degree to which this President continues to take steps to go to war against Iran without consulting with the full Congress is the degree to which he is increasingly putting himself in jeopardy of an impeachment proceeding." - Dennis Kucinich
SHARE Sunday, January 14, 2007 If Beale Street Could Talk - Part 2
By any serious standard of journalism, impeachment should be in the news right now. This illustrates the worst problem with our media. It's not how they cover stories. It's how they do not cover stories.
SHARE Thursday, January 25, 2007 Congress Announces First Investigation of Bush's Crimes
HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE Oversight Hearing on: "Presidential Signing Statements under the Bush Administration: A Threat to Checks and Balances and the Rule of Law?"
SHARE Wednesday, July 6, 2016 Blair Committed Supreme Crime
Chilcot tells us what we knew but at much greater length with lots of gaps in it